UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: Diane Gilhooley and Paul Fontes, Eversheds Sutherland
the state will enforce holiday pay and SSP rights, and the government will be able to bring tribunal proceedings in place of a worker, provide work - ers with legal assistance and recover enforcement costs in some circumstances. In addition, the time limit in which most tribunal claims can be brought will be increased from three to six months. Equality Reforms The UK is undergoing a significant evolution in work - place equality, driven by a new legislative agenda and broader societal expectations. The government’s reforms contained in the ERB and the anticipated Equality (Race and Disability) Bill are at the forefront of these changes, reinforcing the government’s com - mitment to “strengthen equality at work for all”. The legislative approach aligns with wider trends and expectations around fairness, equality and respon - sible business conduct. Companies are increasingly being held to higher standards of accountability and transparency, necessitating a more proactive, and not just reactive, approach to equality issues. Harassment changes: new employer duties The government is committed to strengthening pro - tections against workplace harassment, stating that “one in two of all women have been sexually harassed at work”. Measures to strengthen harassment protections had already been commenced by the previous govern - ment, with new legislation coming into force on 26 October 2024, which for the first time put a positive, proactive duty on employers to take “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employ - ees. The new duty does not create a standalone claim, but claims for breach of the duty can be considered by a tribunal where it has upheld an employee’s claim of sexual harassment, and compensation increased where an employer is found to have breached the pre - ventative duty. As a result of the existing new duty to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their employ - ees, a trend has already been seen of employers being more proactive to risk assess their current practices, ensure that issues are fairly investigated and put in
place risk mitigation measures. That trend is likely to continue and increase as a result of reforms in the ERB that will further strengthen the legal framework around workplace harassment, including: • a requirement for businesses to take “all” reasona - ble steps to prevent workplace sexual harassment; • the introduction of third-party harassment liabil - ity (whether related to sex or any other protected characteristic); and • the express inclusion of sexual harassment under whistle-blowing legislation. The government is also considering whether sexual harassment protections should be extended to volun - teers, thereby broadening the scope of who is safe - guarded under the law. Extending gender pay gap reporting to include ethnicity and disability pay gaps With the aim of tackling pay discrimination in the UK through greater transparency and accountability, employers with 250 or more employees have, since 2017, been required to report on their gender pay gaps. However, progress on reducing the gap has been slow, with the UK gap continuing to track higher than the European average. At the current rate, it is estimated that it could take at least another 40 to 50 years to fully close the gender pay gap. This is conse - quently an area of focus of the government, which has pledged to “go further and faster” to close the gender pay gap “once and for all”. One of the reforms seeking to speed up progress on reducing gender pay gaps is to require employers, on a mandatory basis from 2027, to prepare action plans setting out how they intend to address the causes of the gap and publish prescribed information relating to the plan. It is also proposed that the pay gap reporting and action plan requirements be extended to ethnic minor - ity and disabled employees from 2027. In the meantime, developments in the EU have over - taken the UK’s approach to gender pay transparency, introducing from June 2026 onwards for the first time across the EU a framework of gender pay transpar -
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