Stone King Legal Update: TUPE Update May 2014

The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/16) (TUPE) came into force on 31 January 2014, amending TUPE 2006. This applies to TUPE transfers that take place on or after 1 May 2014.

One of the key changes is an increase in the deadline by which the transferor (the current employer) must provide the employee liability information from 14 days to 28 days before the transfer. This applies to all TUPE transfers that take place on or after 1 May 2014.

‘Employee liability information’ consists of information about the transferring employees including their identity, age, contract of employment, information about maternity or sick leave, information about collective agreements and any disciplinary or grievance proceedings in the past two years.

The change follows criticism expressed that it would be beneficial for new employers to have employee liability information earlier than 14 days before the transfer in order to plan properly and prepare for the transfer of the employees. 

This is relevant for schools currently considering converting to Academy status. Current employers, such as a local authority or governing body, will be obliged to give the employee liability information 28 days rather than 14 days before transfer. This also applies to schools when contracting out services such as cleaning/caretaking to an independent company or local authority.

If the current employer does not provide the new employer with employee liability information 28 days before the transfer, the new employer can bring a claim in the employment tribunal. The tribunal can order that the current employer pays the new employer such amount as the tribunal considers “just and equitable” subject to a minimum amount of £500 for each employee in respect of whom information was not provided or was defective. As such for a school with 100 employees the penalty could be £5,000.  However, the minimum amount can be waived if the tribunal is satisfied that it would be unjust to award it, for instance if the breach was trivial or unwitting.