Changes to TUPE come into force

Implementation date: 31 January 2014

The Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/16) make changes to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/246) (TUPE).

Key details

In May 2011, the Government announced its intention to consider the case for reforming the current TUPE provisions stating that some businesses believe that they are "overly bureaucratic" and "gold plated", ie that the UK went further than was required by the Acquired Rights Directive (2001/23/EC) when transposing it into national law.

The Government consulted on proposals to make changes to TUPE in January 2013. In September 2013, it published its response to the consultation. The following list includes some of the changes that the Government will and will not be taking forward:

  • The Government consulted on repealing the provisions on service provision changes, but this proposal has been dropped.
  • The Government proposed to remove the duty to provide employee liability information, but this has also been dropped (although the time frame for providing such information will be changed).
  • Renegotiation of terms derived from collective agreements, where the variation is by reason of the transfer, will be allowed one year after the transfer, provided that overall the change is no less favourable to the employee.
  • There will be a static approach to the transfer of terms derived from collective agreements (ie transferees should not be affected by any subsequent variations or new collective agreements relating to the transferor following the transfer).
  • Changes in the location of the workforce following a transfer will be within the scope of economic, technical or organisational reasons entailing changes in the workforce, thereby preventing genuine place of work redundancies from being automatically unfair.
  • Pre-transfer consultation by the transferee with representatives of employees who are transferring will be able to count for the purposes of complying with the collective redundancy rules.