Russell HR Consulting

As business continues to grow and we haven’t yet found a cloning machine for Kate – we are looking to expand our team!

We would be keen to hear from HR generalists, who would like to join our team on a flexible part -time basis, initially for a fixed term contract of three months. The successful applicant will have some experience of dealing with employment contracts, discipline and grievance matters and providing HR advice. 

The position would suit someone who would be able to provide telephone support and some face to face support to our large client base and will be based in the Milton Keynes area.

If you know of anyone suitable or who would like to find out more, please do not hesitate to contact the practice manager, Natasha. She can be contacted via email at pm@russellhrconsulting.co.uk or on 0845 644 8955.

Here’s an interesting case spotted in the Times Online last week.

Kentish paperboy Myles Bebbington is 15. He was paid £2.50 a day, for half an hour’s work starting at 7am, and was given £2.50 extra if he worked seven days a week.

When the owner of the papershop asked him to start his shift at 6.30am, Myles’s mother complained. Later that day, Myles was allegedly told by the shopowner not to return to work.

Myles decided to submit his case to the Ashford tribunal.  Although sympathetic to his siutation, his claim was dismissed because technically he was not employed, and therefore could not have been dismissed.  His case has now been taken up  by the Children’s Legal Centre, who plan to appeal against the decision. They want new laws drawn up to protect working children from exploitation.

Myles’s case has highlighted the inconsistency and lack of clarity inherent in Britain’s child employment laws, which vary from county to county and have not been properly updated since the 1960s. After a campaign in 2005, a taskforce recommended a change in the law. It was ignored.

Professor Carolyn Hamilton, director of the Children’s Legal Centre, said anyone involved in an occupation or trade for money was employed, and that under-16s could not be self-employed.

The laws on employing children vary considerably round the UK.  For example, in Coventry children are not allowed to work until 14,  In most other areas they can work at 13.

The Professor said “There is huge opportunity for explotation. Children have no sick pay, no minimum pay and no paid holiday. All of these issues could do with clarification.”

Breaking news that the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform was launching a consultation on discrimination against ginger haired people sent employment lawyers scurrying for information last week.

Law firm Wake Smith & Tofields sent out the law bulletin saying the Government was consulting on “gingerism” as an extension of equality laws. Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was cited as a spokesman for a pressure group on the issue and lobbyists were said to be pushing for the name of ginger nut biscuits to be changed.

Sheepish looks were exchanged in the employment law community (though not it has to be said at Russell HR Consulting where we can spot a joke) as the bulletin was discovered to be an April Fool.

However, who knows …… even the mooting of the idea, potty though it is, may lead the current Government to introduce the concept of gingerism to its Equality Bill.  Making life almost impossible for small businesses has never seemed to bother them overmuch……………

This story about managing attendance was sent to us by one of our business contacts.  It tickled us, so we thought it worth a mention.

“My in-laws run a limited company which is largely funded through public grants, and due to the nature of its activities has a high proportion of former public sector workers. One of the managers has had a habit of taking sick leave on days adjacent to his holidays - to the extent where it became a predictable thing. When he commented on this, I recommended your book [Off the Sick List! How to turn employee absence into attendance] to my father in law, which he duly bought. Being a busy individual, he didn’t actually read it, but left it in a prominent position on his desk in the office, clearly in view of the manger in question. He made no overt reference to the book’s presence, didn’t comment on the absences other than to ask how the manager was, and so on.

So far, no further absences have been noted. Clearly, only time will tell, but I thought you’d enjoy hearing how there is more than one way to use the book as a tool against excessive sickness absences. Who knows what heights will be scaled when Tom actually gets round to reading it!”

It’s nice to know the book’s effective, even if it’s not always in the way originally envisaged J

For the first time in the UK there are more people over 65 than under 16 anddemands are being made more vociferously for people to be able to work beyond pensionable age.

Last week two immigration judges, Stuart Southgate and Jeremy Varcoe, who were forced to retire at 70, brought a case against the Ministry of Justice over in the Reading Tribunal.

Representing themselves, they argued that other immigration judges had, at the age of 70, been able to apply for one-year extensions where that was thought to be in the public interest.  Despite this they lost their case.

The tribunal found that that although it was age discrimination for the Ministry of Justice to fail to renew their contracts on the grounds of their age, the discrimination was not unlawful because their enforced retirement at age 70 was a statutory requirement.

The judges are taking further advice and any interesting developments will be reported in Law on the Move, our quarterly employment law update.