HR professionals will no doubt be aware that the statutory dispute resolution procedures are to be abolished by an Employment Act in April 2009. One of the proposals to arise from the planned abolition is an extension of the definition of “relevant adviser” for compromise agreements, to include members of the CIPD. Members would not be able to be employed by the employer to act in this capacity.

One of the most frequently asked questions throughout July highlights the changes to rights during maternity leave affecting those with an expected week of childbirth on or after 5 October 2008 - the issue of payment of a car allowance during additional maternity leave. Other questions consider a requirement to take outstanding holiday during garden leave and dismissing an unsatisfactory probationer during the probation period.

Some of the most frequently visited FAQs on XpertHR during June concern the calculation of statutory payments - redundancy pay and SMP - where the employee in question has had a recent change in hours. Questions on the length of time that an ex-employee’s personnel record should be kept, and a change of heart on the employer’s part after a job applicant has accepted a position also feature.

A legal challenge to the UK default retirement age is due to be heard by the European Court of Justice on Wednesday 2 July. The case has been brought by the National Council on Ageing, which operates under the names Heyday and Age Concern. It argues that the Government has improperly implemented the EU Framework Directive on which our age discrimination Regulations are based through the inclusion of the default retirement age. This allows employers to retire people at age 65 or over.

Having issued a new, non-prescriptive, draft statutory Code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures in May, Acas has now published a draft of its proposed accompanying non-statutory guidance.

Throughout May, some of the most frequently visited XpertHR FAQs were those recently added to the site as a result of subscriber suggestions - questions on a rise in the limit of a week's pay coinciding with the notice period for a redundant employee, and the qualification requirements for trade union officials who accompany workers to disciplinary or grievance hearings. Others concerned employees returning to work when they're signed off sick by a doctor, and asking job candidates about their sickness record.

There is bad news on the employment front from the world of football, where Scottish Premier League side Gretna has run out of money and made its remaining 40 players and staff redundant.

Gretna went into administration in March, when its owners withdrew financial support, and there were fears that it would be unable to finish the season.

The BBC reports that an online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty will go live later this month. The National Staff Dismissal Register is an initiative of Action Against Business Crime (AABC) - a partnership between the Home Office and the British Retail Consortium.

The BBC quotes the AABC's chief executive, Mike Schuck, as saying that all participating companies will be obliged to abide by the Data Protection Act and that workers named on the database will have the right to change their entries if they are inaccurate.

Many of the questions featured in our 10 most frequently visited FAQs during April relate to legislative changes that came into force on 6 April, including the amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 in relation to harassment and rights during maternity leave, and the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Meanwhile, the statutory retirement procedures are still a source of confusion, with subscribers viewing FAQs on the number of requests that can be made in connection to a proposed retirement date, and whether or not an employer can seek to retire an employee at a later date where it has previously granted a request for him or her to continue working indefinitely beyond retirement age.

Relocation of employees is a common task for HR departments, but it can also raise some difficult issues. Some new model documents on relocation [subscription required] have been added to XpertHR’s resources on this subject to help employers.

Throughout March, issues on which XpertHR subscribers were looking for answers included the use of words such as "senior" and "junior" in job titles, recouping training costs where an employee subsequently leaves the organisation, and the difference between wrongful dismissal and unfair dismissal.

The TUC is calling on the chancellor (external website) to restore the value of redundancy pay in next week's Budget.

Many of the questions featured in our 10 most popular questions during February are new additions to the FAQ section of XpertHR – the majority published as the result of subscriber suggestions. So, if you have a question that you would like to see in the FAQ section of the site, don’t forget you can make use of the suggest a question button [subscription required]. Even if your suggestion isn’t suitable for publication as an FAQ, it might still provide useful ideas for guidance that could be published in other areas of the site, or prompt more detailed examination of a problematic subject.

Employers will be relieved to know that the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has refused to uphold the claim of an employee who claimed that his dismissal while he was on paternity leave was unfair.

Throughout January the questions you asked most often covered a variety of subjects including: return-to-work interviews; “last in, first out” as a redundancy selection criterion; grievances raised after the employee has left the company; pregnant employees who have used up their company sick pay entitlement; and whether or not there is a statutory obligation to pay employees for their rest breaks. The month's top 10 questions are listed below – simply click on the links for the answers.

While the recently published Employment Bill also concerns provisions relating to the minimum wage and employment agency rules, its main interest for most employers lies in the provisions repealing the statutory dispute resolution procedures. The procedures have been in force since October 2004, and were found by the Gibbons Review into options for simplifying and improving all aspects of employment dispute resolution [PDF format, 376K) (on the DBERR website) “to carry an unnecessarily high administrative burden for both employers and employees and [to] have had unintended negative consequences which outweigh their benefits”.

The beginning of February and the annual increase in certain tribunal award limits and other amounts payable under employment legislation is approaching. From 1 February, the limit on the compensatory award payable for unfair dismissal will increase to £63,000, while the limit on a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating a redundancy payment will rise to £330. Don’t forget that the new limits apply only where the event giving rise to the award or the payment – the dismissal in the above cases – occurs on or after 1 February 2008. The old limits continue to apply for events occurring prior to this date. A full list of the new - and current - limits is available in the XpertHR quick reference section [subscription required].

Did you spend the Christmas break fretting about what employment law cases are coming up in the next twelve months? Help is at hand, with my round up of ten significant decisions expected in 2008.

Once again, pregnancy and maternity featured in the month’s top 10 most frequently asked HR questions. Throughout December you asked questions on bonuses for employees on maternity leave, poorly performing pregnant probationers, fixed-term contracts due to terminate while the individual is on maternity leave and paid work during maternity leave. With regard to leavers, you wanted to know if it’s permissible to withhold the P45 of an employee who has been overpaid until the sum in question is repaid, and what action can be taken in relation to someone who fails to return company property.

Just how flexible should you be when an employee hands in their notice, and casually mentions that they would like to go at the end of the week rather than working out their three months' notice?

An IRS survey on "end of employment" issues (subscription required) out today on XpertHR suggests that while few employers try to force someone who has been made redundant to work their notice in full, most employers take a different line with those who choose to go.

… wrongful dismissal is not the same as unfair dismissal?

Several of the most frequently asked HR questions throughout November concern sickness absence and cover the issues of covert surveillance where there are suspicions about the genuineness of the sickness, decreasing pay to reflect a phased return to work, and payment during the notice period where sick pay has been exhausted. The subject of rewarding low sickness absence also features.

The recent case of Optical Express Ltd v Williams EAT/0036/07 [subscription required] shows the confusion that can be caused when suitable alternative employment is being sought for a redundant employee. XpertHR’s timely new model documents [all links require a subscription] provide a robust framework that employers can use in this situation, including a model policy on finding suitable alternative employment for redundant employees.

A former London park worker made redundant along with 23 colleagues has won a record £550,499.09p in compensation after an employment tribunal ruled that his former employer had discriminated against him because of his disability.

It is now over a year since the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006, which outlaw discrimination on grounds of age, came into effect. Such a fundamental change to employment law might have been expected to have far reaching effects on employers and their employment practices and no doubt many are still learning to adapt to the requirements. While a flood of age discrimination claims might have been anticipated, in fact in its annual statistics for 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2007 the employment tribunals service reported that only 972 claims were accepted, compared to 28,153 sex discrimination claims and 3,780 for race discrimination. Of course, as the new rules did not come into effect until 1 October 2006 it will take some time for claims to filter through to the tribunals.