The government has published its response to its 2016 consultation on tipping, gratuities, cover and service charges and has confirmed its intention to bring forward legislative measures to ensure tips, gratuities and service charges go to workers in full. The legislative measures will include:

• requirements for employers in all sectors to not make any deductions from tips received by their staff, including admin charges, other than those required by tax law
• requirements for employers to distribute tips in a way that is fair and transparent, with a written policy on tips, and a record of how tips have been dealt with. Employers will be able to distribute tips via a tronc, and a tip must be dealt with by no later than the end of the month following the month in which it was paid by the customer
• provisions to allow workers to make a request for information relating to an employer’s tipping record. Employers will have flexibility in how to design and communicate a tipping record, but they should respond within four weeks
• requirements for employers to have regard to a new statutory Code of Practice on Tipping which will support the legislation.

Where employers fail to comply with the new measures, workers will be able to bring employment tribunal claims.

The provisions will be included in the upcoming Employment Bill which will be brought forward when parliamentary time allows.

The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021 have now been approved by both House of Parliament and will come into force on 11 November 2021. The regulations effectively require staff working in registered care homes in England to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 unless they’re medically exempt.

The regulations provide that the care home must secure that people do not enter the care home premises (excluding any surrounding grounds) unless they fall into one of the specified exceptions. Those exceptions include that:

• they’re a resident of the care home
• they’ve provided evidence of their full COVID-19 vaccination status, or evidence that for clinical reasons they cannot be vaccinated
• it’s reasonably necessary for them to provide emergency assistance in the premises, or urgent maintenance assistance with respect to the premises, e.g. an emergency plumber
• they’re attending the premises in the execution of their duties as a member of the emergency services
• they’re a friend or relative of the resident, or they’re visiting a resident who it’s believed is dying
• it’s reasonably necessary for them to provide comfort or support to a resident in relation to their bereavement following the death of a friend or relative
• they’re under the age of 18.

The regulations are to be reviewed by the government, and a report published, within one year after the date on which they come into force and within every year after that.

When a new employee is added to the payroll it is the employers' responsibility to ensure they meet the employees’ rights. One of the issues that must be considered is the employees’ length of continuous employment. Continuous employment is calculated from the first day of work without a break.

The length of continuous employment gives certain rights to employees, including maternity pay, flexible working requests and redundancy pay.

Infrequent breaks in normal employment still count towards a continuous employment period. These are:

• sickness, maternity, paternity, parental or adoption leave
• annual leave
• employment overseas with the same company
• time between unfair dismissal and an employee being reinstated
• when an employee moves between associated employers
• military service, for example with a reserve force
• temporary layoffs
• employer lockouts
• when a business is transferred from one employer to another
• when a corporate body gets taken over by another because of a legal change

Any days that an employee is on strike do not count towards continuous employment, but the days are not treated as a break.

Following its summer 2019 consultation entitled “Health is everyone’s business: proposals for reducing ill health-related job loss”, the government has now published its response which takes into account the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on work and health. The response confirms that the government:

• will not be proceeding with the consultation proposal to introduce a new right for non-disabled employees to request work or workplace modifications on health grounds – note that the existing duty on employers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled staff under the Equality Act 2010 will remain in place
• will be taking forward its manifesto commitment to encourage flexible working and to consult on making it the default unless employers have good reasons not to – that consultation will be published “in due course”
• will develop a national information and advice service for employers on health, work and disability, with material designed to help manage common health and disability events in the workplace
• has asked the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to work on developing non-statutory guidance to support disabled people and those with long-term health conditions to remain in work (and the HSE will also explore introducing statutory guidance in this area)
• will not be implementing the range of measures proposed to reform statutory sick pay (SSP) at this stage because “now is not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system”. However, the government does acknowledge that several important questions posed in the consultation on the future of SSP require further consideration, so reform in this area is still possible in the future
• is exploring extending fit note certification to a wider group of healthcare professionals
• intends to introduce digital certifying of fit notes (to remove the current requirement for them to be signed in ink) and create a new interactive version of the fit note which will provide advice and support for suggested workplace adaptations/modifications to encourage work and health discussions between patients and employers
• will test a subsidy scheme to enable SMEs and self-employed people to access quality occupational health (OH) support and will work with key stakeholder organisations to explore how it may be able to support innovative ideas that increase the purchasing of OH by SMEs and the self-employed
• will continue to promote and raise awareness of the Access to Work programme.