What are the key proposed areas for change?
- UK Government pledged in July 2021 to implement the following:-
- A new positive obligation for employers to prevent harassment in the workplace. The existing defence (that you have taken all reasonable steps to avoid acts of delinquent employees harassing an employee) will still be available, but as we have reported in our updates, recent case law has made reliance upon that defence a much harder hurdle to clear - which includes the need for things like annual high quality equality training and clear and comprehensive equality policies and systems.
- We expect the said employer’s positive obligation will be defined soon and we’ll update.
- The government will also likely introduce a duty for employers to prevent 3rd party harassment in the workplace. Again, the reasonable steps defence will apply here too BUT this will considerably widen the scope of possible claims, created not only by direct employees but third parties too.
- The Government will also look closely at extending time limits for employees to bring discrimination claims under the Equality Act 2010 (EA) – likely to be raised to 6 months from the offending act complained of and may apply to all claims under the EA.
- When and what should you do?
- Keep an eye on our monthly updates, it is likely to be later this year but the government have said it will be…. “When parliamentary time allows”.
- We recommend implementing regular training, We provide annual group training sessions so please do email us if you and your team have not have any equality training recently.