The NI changes are going to cost my organisation £1000 per employee

@Sandunesandseashells is correct. And CQC inspectors as well as Ofsted.

No job offer will be made until a conversation with previous employers has been satisfactorily made.

It's one of hundreds of the factors which demonstrates the (necessary) stringency of recruitment which costs time and money yet isn't factored into the price commissioners pay for social care.

In all areas of social care, safer recruitment procedure dictates a follow up call to individuals who complete a reference is obligatory. And if they were not a line manager, then ideally a line manager should also be spoken with. Our regulator, Ofsted, check every new personnel file at every inspection to ensure this was done.

Is FS set on taking over every employment related thread?

In the big world outside of FS you'd probably be surprised how many managers do take that call.

It's not shallow in financial services, it's thorough. And managers in FS won't answer calls with follow up questions, they will only send the official reference.
I don't know anywhere managers would have time for that. Or care enough to even take the call.

I've worked for a large company where this was done for every hire. As a direct consequence of the gaping holes that typical HR "thorough" reference checking missed causing massive disruption. If I'm dismissive of reference checking it's because the usual level of check is quite shallow.

It said she had to take her clothes off, which is pretty much the definition of strip searched.

Hilarious.

You're the one who said reference checks and claimed they aren't done. As if a big firm or public body could call a previous manager for every new recruit. Lol!

Individuals will always bear the burden, because individuals own and work in businesses.

Most bigger businesses are "owned" by investors, i.e. individuals, often normal people who've either bought shares directly, or through ISAs, unit trusts, or their occupational pension schemes have invested in businesses to grow capital and produce an income to pay the pensions of individuals. Millions of people, for example, are investors in Tesco, either directly or indirectly and many will rely on Tesco and similar firms making a profit for their future pensions!

Not everyone is on a cushy gold plated public sector pension underwritten by the taxpayer!

Businesses need to generate profits to give a return to their investors, ie individuals, otherwise they'd never get any investment in the first place, which is essential to grow and even maintain a business.

Well.. you don't find out through "very thorough reference checks" done by HR. You'll only generally find out when one manager speaks directly to another and asks completely reasonable questions such as, "You do not have to answer, but if a vacancy arose tomorrow would you rehire Eric to the role?".

For many businesses it’s because business rates are lower or non existent in many countries, rents are often lower as they are less densely populated, energy costs are sometimes lower (especially France as they backed nuclear here) and, most importantly, customers generally pay more.

I don't she was strip searched. She had to have a more thorough search in a private room which may not be quite the same. I only remember it because it was a case I noticed yesterday. I know someone who acts for local authorities and others who have masses of very spurious employment cases brought against them - so very many. it is a huge industry out there and unlike the private sector which might simply decide to employ fewer people (I choose to employ no one as the rules are so horrible and time can costs not worth it) those kind of state bodies so not have a choice - although even they use masses of agencies to find workers and companies like Capita get the workers so I suppose the complex employment laws have at least led to companies like that making profits so some gain may be for someone (I bet a lot of MN posters have a pension invested in companies like that so they gain from that too.

Of course, you can cite thousands of unsuccessful claims. Not sure why you chose that one, maybe it was the "tried to sue for a million pounds" that did it. If you'd read it, you'd have seen she actually amended her claim to £25m.

Interestingly, the claimant withdrew her claim of constructive dismissal (it's not clear why) and there was a long discussion about the original search being out of time for the tribunal to hear as the main discrimination claim, so they had to decide if the later acts were racially motivated in order to show them as linked acts of discrimination.

But also interestingly, the judge made it clear that the employer had NOT acted reasonably. While they didn't find race discrimination, they did find a lack of care for process. And I'm sure we all agree that being strip searched is pretty ghastly, especially at work! So, I think this woman should be allowed to have her case tested by a judge. That's why we have courts.

I feel like some people here are of the "they're all criminals, why bother with a trial" school of thought.

Not unusual for social care at all actually it’s going to cause havoc

Well, it would be good to see evidence of that. Because most places I've worked do very thorough reference checks and yet still get claims.

But, it's not at all clear what you mean by "prone to making claims" or how you would know if someone had made a claim previously.

I honestly don’t know 🤷‍♀️
As a small(ish) employer, with an ever reducing margin, adding increased NI with an increasing exposure to litigation, it just doesn’t make sense to risk hiring, particularly unknown/inexperienced staff. Especially, in an uncertain economic environment.

How do other European countries with far better employment rights and with much greater productivity manage?

France even stipulates 1.25 over time rate fro the first 8 hours and there after 2.0.

These countries, generally speaking, have lower govt borrowing costs and better GDP per capita.

In the exact same position. I had a couple of job ads out in the autumn but had to pull them after the budget. It's just too tight for us and I think the extra costs could run the risk of pushing our business over the edge. I hate to say it, but we're looking at hiring a couple of remote workers in India now. I'd love to stand by my values and only hire British workers but, if we go under, there's 23 people out of a job. So I have to do what's best for the business and the workers I have already.

Claims take up a huge amount of money - some will be valid and some not and the cost even just in terms of employer time is just one of the many things that puts people off hiring and therefore they use other methods - AI, robots, subcontracted staff etc. This claim the press 12 hours ago is one example - she claimed £1m and didn't win the race discrimination - worked at Heathrow and she didn't like a search they did for security reasons. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/black-heathrow-worker-racial-discrimination-claim-b1202465.html

Full decision here https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6762f2d3ff2c870561bde824/Miss_V_Brown_-_v-_LHR_Airports_Limited-3306976-2023-_Judgment.pdf. There were three full days of tribunal hearings which presumably the employer had to attend.

I don't really understand your point about new employees, because someone with five years service was a new employee once. You seem to suggest that new employees are a "type".

No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that employees that are prone to raising spurious (perhaps a better term) claims are a type. They often have form for similar behaviours with previous employers, and would usually fail the reference test if that was done (rare IME).

You have no choice but to pay for legal advice.

Of course you have a choice. Loads of employers go to tribunal without legal support. I do the tribunals for my employer. We don't take legal advice. Sometimes if I'm not available the MD goes himself.

If you're trading legal letters for months on settlements you need better advisors. I've got one at the moment, I made the offer via Acas (no charge), he came back asking for more, we moved a bit, he didn't move, I told Acas that's our offer and that's it. Few days, couple of hours work, no cost. He will probably accept but the hearing isn't until July so I'm happy to sit it out now.

Agree you don't get costs from claimants (though I often threaten to go after them). But equally they don't get costs from you.

You need to put forward a defence otherwise you'll get a default judgment (this happens a lot actually, and doesn't necessarily mean the judge would rule against you, so if a claim is truly outrageous, don't respond) but at this stage there's no reputation risk because the claims are not public until and unless there is a judgment.

Ref "no win, no fee", this is actually quite rare for employment claims that come through to hearing because most of those sorts of lawyers will only go ahead with slam dunk cases, and such cases are rare in tribunal (and you're talking about claims with no validity where the employer has done everything they could do fairly, so no lawyer would take that on a no win, no fee basis).
I've had people with that kind of lawyer up front, but they often disappear once the defence goes in. They also only seem to want to negotiate settlements so if you stand your ground you sometimes find the lawyer has suddenly stopped representing.

The evidence actually shows that unfounded claims don't really change with changes to rights (when it went from one to two years, when they brought in charges, when they removed the charges etc). But, you know, don't bother to research anything, just make stuff up.

The govt is consulting on this stuff by the way, I think the consultation is still open. I've added to it, you could do too.

"vexatious" claims is a specific term in law, and it's very rare for a claimant to be labeled vexatious. You can find the court list of vexatious litigants online, if you then Google their names you can usually find the cases where they got the label. It's generally bringing dozens of unfounded claims, often with no actual legal basis at all (as in, they are referring to law that doesn't exist).

It's not just "a claim someone disagrees with".

So, no, the employment tribunal does not provide stats on "vexatious claims" because they don't recognize that term.

You can find stats on failed claims vs successful claims. I don't think they publish alongside that how long someone was employed. But they do publish many of the tribunal rulings, which often mention length of service in the narrative, so I guess you could read some to get an idea.

I don't really understand your point about new employees, because someone with five years service was a new employee once. You seem to suggest that new employees are a "type".

Does anyone have the stats on how many vexatious/unfounded claims were filed by employees within their first two years employment vs. those from employees employed five years or more?

The few vexatious claims I can recall clients facing were all from relatively new employees. Because that type of employee finds ways and means of causing trouble regardless of when their full rights kick in. And they tend not to stay in the same job for very long.

Whether Rachel from Accounts' budget will end up being a Liz Truss moment for the economy we shall see. On the employee claims etc issues the state always has to balance burdens on employers v. what is so much a burden it stops employers hiring. I work for myself. I employ no one. I have a few contractors doing some things for me most of whom are abroad

. I would not take an employee on to do that as the burdens and risks are too great and about to get worse under Labour (although the Tories were very very high tax Tories on anyone on £70k or more before tax whilst the other 90% had cuts particularly to employee NI which went right down to 8%.

I am not against that 8%, however, as I would like to see NI wither on the vine so that we just have tax as the system is far too complicated as it stands. Increasing employer NI to 15%, however, including on hard working mothers who work full time and have to employ childcare (eg young doctors who need out of hours provision a nursery may not provide for a baby) does not bode well for the chance of abolishing all NI.

Quite. The NI rise on business is proof of that. Redundancies, pay freezes, recruitment freezes…