Mark Ellis Blog

Since March, Professor Ragnar Löfstedt has been heading up a review of the UK’s health and safety regulations, as part of the Government’s drive to simplify legislation and reduce the burden on businesses. The good Professor’s report was published yesterday, amid an underwhelming media response – indeed The Times chose to make no mention of […]

 
There has been lots of talk in the press in the last few weeks about employment laws, the cost of Employment Tribunals and Government plans to scrap employment laws to kick start an entrepreneurial economy.
 
So, what’s the real cost of Employment Tribunals? Are those costs and burdensome employment laws really stifling growth in UK plc? […]

Jungle Maggot Tub, “Neil’s Death Trap”, Tug O’ War, Master Chef, It’s a Knockout and much more!  All happening at EW on 20 October in aid of Children In Need.  Full schedule here.

Are you sitting comfortably? Well, here is a little story! 
In the olden days, if a business had an employment law question or a health and safety compliance issue, it went to a firm of solicitors. Most firms of solicitors could be relied on to give sound advice - but not necessarily quickly - and to […]

Mark Prisk (he’s the Minister of State for Business and Enterprise) has told us that “successive governments have made all sorts of promises on tackling red tape”. True – but none have succeeded yet. Most have a habit of cutting it long ways by mistake and end up making more!
 
However, this time they say […]

 
A new right for fathers (and the partners of mothers and adopters) to additional time off to spend with their new-born (or newly adopted) children was introduced in April.  The simple idea, “let’s give fathers a bit more time with their kids” took three sets of regulations, totalling 89 regulations in all, to introduce into […]

The British Chambers of Commerce report “Health and Safety – A Risky Business” released today suggests that health and safety legislation has gone too far, is increasingly burdensome to business and applied ‘indiscriminately and unintelligently’ to low risk businesses.   The report asks for simplification and consolidation of regulations, to prevent health and safety becoming a […]

In the last week or so, the UK Coalition published an `Employer’s Charter,’ which for company directors and HR managers used to a succession of regulations being imposed on them by UK and EU Governments, sounded like a refreshing change. 
This new `Employer’s Charter’ is designed to dispel some myths about employment law and reassure […]

The recent media storm surrounding Andy Gray and Richard Keys’ sacking/resignation as Sky TV football pundits has been a big one.

The reasons for Gray’s dismissal are his recorded sexist remarks and `unacceptable behaviour.’
 
It’s now reported that Gray is planning to sue Sky for around £3m in compensation and Keys publicly blamed ‘dark forces’ at Sky […]

 
There’s been a lot in the news media recently about the costs to employers of defending unmeritorious employment tribunal claims. There was an article in the Times on 4 January and an item on the Today programme on Radio 4 on 5 January (http://bbc.in/g3acSr). 
Both of these in turn set the ‘blogosphere’ alight with the musings […]