Five new legislation changes come into force today, mostly in connection with parental leave and pay. There’s also new legislation around information obtained through the Data Protection Act.
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Key dates for your diary
Lots of changes come into force today:
- Shared parental leave regulations
- Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2014
- Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Administration) Regulations 2014
- Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay (Parental Orders and Prospective Adopters) Regulations 2014
- Section 56 Data Protection Act 1998
What the legislation changes mean for your business
With so many changes coming in today, we look at what it means for you and what
- Changes to leave and pay
The key changes apply to four pieces of legislation and affect parents under various circumstances. The key changes are to:
Shared parental leave regulations
The regulations give eligible women the right to cut short their maternity leave and opt for Shared Parental Leave instead. This means they can divide their shared parental leave with their partner or the child’s father. This also applies to adopters.
This change may mean that mothers return to work more quickly or that fathers, partners or adopters may take more time off. It’s possible for parents to return to work and then take more leave at a later date.
The regulations apply for the first year following a child’s birth or adoption. It will apply for children whose expected week of birth begins on or after 5 April 2015 or children who are placed for adoption on or after 5 April 2015.
More details are on the Government website.
Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay (General) (Amendment) Regulations 2014
This amendment sets out to align the notification periods for statutory paternity pay and statutory paternity leave. This applies to fathers and adopter. The main changes are to:
- Align the notice period for statutory paternity pay with the notice period for statutory paternity leave. The notice must be provided in or before the 15th week before the expected week of birth. Adopter must provide notice no more than seven days after being notified of having been matched with the child.
- Amends the Pay Regulations for the provisions for varying the choice of when a period of statutory paternity pay will begin. This aligns it with those for statutory paternity leave in the Leave Regulations, so that notice must be given 28 days before the relevant day or date.
- Amends the Pay Regulations so that the time for providing information and evidence regarding entitlement is aligned with that for providing notice.
More information is available from the Government website.
Statutory Shared Parental Pay (Administration) Regulations 2014
These provide for the funding of employer liabilities to make payments of statutory shared parental pay.
Employers who make a payment of statutory shared parental pay are entitled to 92% of the amount or, if the payment qualifies for small employer’s relief, to the full amount.
Employers can apply for funds if they meet the requirements. Find out more.
Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay (Parental Orders and Prospective Adopters) Regulations 2014
These regulations provide a new right to statutory adoption pay for local authority foster parents who are prospective adopters and for surrogate parents who intend to apply for a parental order. It also applies to their partners.
The amendments apply to people who are notified of having been matched with a child on or after 5 April 2015.
Full details are on the Government website.
2. Changes to the Data Protection Act
New changes to Section 56 of the Data Protection Act 1998 prohibit an employer from requiring an individual or third party to provide information that they have got from a subject access request under section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998.
This means that you can’t request some records - such as cautions, criminal convictions and certain social security data - as a condition of employment. Requiring people to provide these records is a criminal offence, punishable by a fine.
Access to this data is acceptable if it is in the public domain - the changes only apply to data that would be accessed via section 7 of the Data Protection Act 1998.