New Employment Regulations

There are a host of new employment related regulations coming into force on 6 April 2010. This is a brief summary of those regulations that are likely to affect you or your business.

Fit notes – these replace sick notes issued by GPs and will state what the worker can do, rather than what he or she is prevented from doing.
Pension date - the date from which the individual can draw the state retirement pension will not necessarily fall exactly on a woman's 60th birthday. For example, a women who reaches age 60 between 6 April 2010 and 5 May 2010 will have a state pension date of 6 May 2010. This date also affects the payment of the employee's NI contributions.
NI contribution years - individuals who reach state retirement age only have to accumulate 30 full years of NI contributions or credits to gain a full state pension.
A single year of NI contributions will count towards the state pension. Until now a person had to accrue at least one quarter of their working life (about 11 years for a man, 10 for a woman) to be entitled to any state retirement pension. Each year of NI contributions will be worth roughly £3.20 of weekly pension at current rates. It will be essential to accurately record the NI number for every employee, so that each individual can collect their pension entitlement when they retire.
Home responsibility protection credits (HRP) will be given on a weekly basis. This will allow the HRP credit to be combined with actual NI contributions to make up a full year of NI credits. HRP credits are given where a person stays at home to look after a child and claims child benefit.