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

[flashbac]

The NI changes are going to cost my organisation on average £1000 per employee, The lowering of the threshold alone is going to cost around £600 extra per employee.

We are heavily regulated with fixed income. We're a not for profit. Our customers expectations are increasing. We are now most likely going to have to somehow reduce our headcount now, and payrises for April are going to be off the table.

Just shaking my head really. Our employees don't deserve this. Hard to see how this isn't a tax on jobs.

The lowering of the threshold also means employers have to pay for more workers, because part time salaries are now dragged into it.

A lot of people reading this won't care. All I can say is this NI increase will also affect you. just think about Local authorities, childcare providers and other services. Do you think it won't affect your Councils services/tax bills, to give one example?

(I'm not a Tory bot btw, before anyone starts accusing me of being one. I voted Remain, don't support the Tories at all, can't stand Boris and his cronies.)

Of course it's a tax on jobs. Many organisations will halt recruitment or make redundancies. Some sectors will be hit more than others. Hospitality is complaining it will be hit. The NMW is also going up over £1 per hour which will also stifle growth. I don't think RR knows much about how to create economic growth. Growth brings on more revenue and allows the government to spend on public services. RR has done the opposite of going for growth with her autumn statement so the economy is now in a downturn. Labour always overspend very quickly and wreck economic growth. Then they have to tax more again. It's a downwards spiral. RR is creating conditions to lead us into a recession.

ha ha.... Aduvetday? Pot n kettle.

From another thread @caringcarer

A majority of UK businesses expect a positive start to 2025, according to two economic confidence surveys which show managers planning for growth after a challenging period for the economy.
About 70% of UK businesses expect their turnover to increase over the next year, up from 62% in December 2023. Meanwhile, 73% are confident of greater profitability, according to research from Lloyds bank.

Hann-Ju Ho, a senior economist at Lloyds, said:* *“It is exciting to see that businesses have ambitious plans for next year and are confident of growth. Overall, businesses have responded well to the changing external environment. While the economic outlook has been challenging, the steps firms are taking to grow should put them in a strong position for success in 2025.”

I'll get ready for more denial
.

If people can't follow a simple process to dismiss someone fairly they shouldn't be employing people. (By the way 'OMBs' by definition don't employ people, because they are one man bands)

It is simple. Yes, it can take some time. But that's FAIR! That's what makes it fair. Giving people time and opportunity to improve.

I can see from the replies here that people actually do think it's OK to just sack people. I can think of no reason at all why dismissing someone without a decent process should ever be allowable. I think we've become blind to what is common decency due to having had this two year period where unfair dismissal didn't count. I think once we culturally get our heads around it, we'll realize it's absolutely the right thing to do.

I never said any recruitment process would be 100% successful every time, but again, I think employers have got lazy. I KNOW they have, I see it all the time - take someone "temp to perm", no process, just use the "temp" part instead of a decent process, then just terminate if they don't like them. I'm old enough to remember before we had the two year qualifying and firms didn't do that then. It's absolutely no way for society to behave.

@Ozgirl76 Have a feelling @HotTopicsWithImogen is being slightly sarcastic in their comments?

The fact is that some (and I wager not an insignificant number) of tribunals are brought forward when there really wasn't a case to answer.

My relative, a fabulous employer where staff stay for 30-40 years (very, very low turnover) had an office person join. They stupidly didn't check references or rather, they asked but the lady said it would be difficult and she seemed nice so they settled for that.

She then kept being difficult socially with the rest of the team (at that point they had hired other newbies too who settled) and kept making serious mistakes. She had numerous development talks and chats but she didn't change her approach or attitude. So they said, sorry will have to let you go.

She then files a complaint that she was dismissed unfairly. They followed all the correct procedures, on top had legal advice. Relative been told they definitely don't have a case to answer for.

Still this is taking up a lot of time on behalf of the staff and especially my relative as the small business owner. The case kept being delayed so it's kept on his mind. He said he understands why some small business owners pays up but he's adamant he won't - even though taking up time/money - on principle as they didn't do anything wrong.

Turns out this lady has filed multiple such complaints but these are not considered by the tribunal or at least not until it goes to court.

Very frustrating!

Business owners are not always the 'bad' ones.

If the person was there under two years they cannot file an unfair dismissal complaint (currently) so there must be more to it. If they have (and the tribunal doesn't always tip it out immediately) then the legal advisors can simply write to the tribunal pointing out that the qualifying period has not been met and therefore the tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear the complaint and it must be dismissed.

I write these letters all the time.

It should cost c£100 for your lawyers to do that letter.

On this subject though, I do think tribunals need some sort of triage system. Anyone can bring any claim really. It can be frustrating. I had one recently where she was trying to demand £10k (it was very obviously an attempt at extortion, as the £10k wasn't based on anything) for "discrimination" but gave no examples of it, and she had only worked eight days (two hours a day) in total, so for us to have done everything she claimed would have been miraculous.
We had to submit a defence, go to a pre hearing etc, for it to be thrown out because of her lack of claim, but had we taken external support obviously that would have had a cost to it.

Yes I think she was there for just over 2 years. Shame they didn't just sack her before as she was really difficult and rude to other staff and making lots of mistakes but never wanting to take onboard any constructive feedback.

In fact, she sounds very similar to the story you quote above. She clearly has got away with it previously (some were with mid-sized firms that probably thought it wasn't worth the hassle). This case is completely groundless and the examples she has quoted, when pressed, were laughable.
But still he has to submit a defence, go the pre- hearing etc like you described. They expect it to be thrown out, of course, but a lot of 'thinking space' devoted to it and wasted hours.

It also seems bonkers that someone can do this multiple times without it having any bearing on subsequent claims. You can be a serial claimer if you have no morals, and, sadly seems there are plenty of those about.

Firstly, an OMB is an ‘owner managed business’. Of course, it can bloody well employ people 🤦‍♀️.

We shall just have to agree to disagree about the ‘decency’ angle. I strongly disagree and we have moved far too far towards employee protection with little regard for the employer.

What you can’t seem to comprehend though is that the cost and time now involved in the recruitment and induction process means significant barriers (both in cost and man power) now exist that didn’t before. If you think that’s a positive thing for job seekers you are (again) mistaken.

Again, you’re wrong. Do you often comment on things you know nothing about? There are certain protected characteristics that allow a person day 1 rights already.
For instance, ADHD is now considered a disability. You could be terminating someone with ADHD for an entirely unrelated reason but have discrimination alleged.

I was only talking about unfair dismissal, clearly. And I was commenting on the specific case the person I was responding to posted about which didn't say anything about discrimination.
Since I represent employers in tribunals, and have never lost a case, I think I'm pretty aware of what cases can be brought and when.

People can "allege" all sorts of things, and they do. Of course I know ADHD is a disability, and of course it is. But the claimant would have to show that the employer knew or had reason to know they had ADHD (and the respondent can request medical evidence via the tribunal, which an employer cannot usually in the normal course of employment), then show that any dismissal was linked to that or that the disability was the primary reason for the dismissal AND then show that the dismissal was unfair. Contrary to commonly held belief, it's not unreasonable to dismiss someone with a disability, even if the reason for the dismissal is the disability, you just have to do it fairly.

But it's very clear your views are pretty unpleasant, so I won't bother engaging with you again.

What’s your alternative suggestion to raise the revenue?

It certainly wouldn't be biting the hand that feeds ie taxing a source of growth.

And you think an employee running a business has time for all of this? Vexatious or unfounded claims will only increase with day one rights AND tribunals don't have the capacity to hear them in any case.

Exactly my point. “People allege all sorts of things, and they do”. As an employer you could follow an entirely fair process and still find yourself embroiled in costly, time consuming litigation. You have no choice but to pay for legal advice. You have to put forward a defence, particularly for reputation reasons. You can very very rarely get a claimant to cover costs, even when the claim is shown to be baseless. You’ve often spent months trading letters, with lawyers suggesting settlements. These claims are often taken on a ‘no win, no fee’ type arrangement. The only loser is the employer left footing the bill.

This, coupled with the increasing cost of NI makes it very unattractive to the increase employee numbers.

How else can we pay for things is just a red herring. A million and one different ways.

How else can we pay for things is just a red herring. A million and one different ways.

Name a couple of these million and one ways.

• Increase income tax?
• Increase employee NI?
• increase CGT?
• reduce benefit payments

Im not saying I agree with any/all but there many ways to skin a cat.

So individuals bear all the burden, particularly the least wealthy. Yes, great idea. The only one worth considering is CGT, which is in many ways a voluntary tax.

Individuals always bear the burden of any tax rise, it’s simply a matter of whether they do so directly or indirectly.

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

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.

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.

"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".

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.

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.

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).

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.