Employment Status: The Taylor Review ‘Good Work’ Report

The Taylor Review, now called the ‘Good Work’ report, has now been published.

Overview of The Taylor Review

Here is a summary of the proposals on employment law that emerge from the report.

1. Keep the distinction between employees and workers, but rename workers who are not employees ‘dependent contractors’
2. Amend the legislation defining employees and workers so that case law principles are reflected in the legislation itself – possibly with supporting secondary legislation
3. Remove the requirement for workers to have a contract to perform work personally
4. Place more emphasis on control in the definition of worker status
5. Consider taking account of the subtly different definitions of ‘worker’ in the legislation
6. Retain the need for personal service in employment contract
7. Amend the law on the National Minimum Wage to make it clear that gig-economy workers allocated for through an app are undertaking a form of output work and will not have to be paid NMW for each hour logged on when there is no work available
8. Treat workers treated as ’employed’ for the purposes of tax status
9. Extend the right to a written statement of terms to workers as well as employees
10. Require written statements to be given on day one of employment
11. Extend written statement of terms to include description of statutory rights
12. Give a stand-alone right to compensation if employer has not given written statement
13. Consider increasing the rate of the National Minimum Wage for hours that are not guaranteed by the employer
14. Preserve continuity of employment where any gap in employment is less than one month, rather than one week
15. Improve the information to be given to agency workers
16. Increase the reference period for calculating holiday pay (where pay is variable) from 12 weeks to 52 weeks
17. Allow holiday pay to be paid on a ‘rolled up basis’
18. Give agency workers the right to request a direct contract with the end user after 12 months on an assignment
19. Give those on zero-hours contracts the right to request guaranteed hours after 12 months
20. Require employers to set up Information and Consultation arrangements when requested by just 2% of the workforce rather than the current 10%
21. Require larger employers to report on their overall workforce structure – including requests from zero-hours workers for regular hours
22. Abolish the ‘Swedish Derogation’ which allows agencies to avoid matching end user pay by employing agency workers in a way that allows for pay between assignments
23. Give HMRC enforcement powers in respect of sick pay and holiday pay as well as minimum wage issues
24. Allow claimants to being a claim to ET (without fee) to determine employment status as a preliminary issue prior to substantive claim
25. Place burden on employer in ET claim to prove that claimant is not an employee / worker
26. Give the government the power to pursue the enforcement of Tribunal awards – i.e. pursuing the actual award, not just imposing a penalty  for non-compliance
27. Allow ET to impose aggravated penalties on employer who does not apply  ET ruling on employment status to similar groups of workers
28. Allow uplifts in compensation where employer commits subsequent breaches of employment law based on similar working arrangements to those already dealt with by ET
29. Consider allowing flexible working requests to cover temporary as well as permanent changes to contracts
30. Reform SSP to make it a proper employment right available to all workers – accrued in line with length of service
31. Give individuals a right to return to work following  long-term sickness absence

Some of these proposals are ‘ready to go’ and others would obviously require a great deal of work to turn them into something specific. For example, it’s all very well saying we need a clearer definition of who is an employee and who is a worker – but what would those definitions actually look like?

Obviously we will keep you up to date on how – if ever – these proposals are actually implemented.

For more information, please contact us via our online form or call 0800 024 1976.