Personal injury trusts A Personal Injury trust, whereby funds received as a result of a personal injury are held and managed, are often held on a bare trust as stated in the question. There are various advantages of establishing a Personal Injury trust: • funds received as a consequence of a personal injury are disregarded for the purpose of assessing means tested benefits, including income support, housing benefit, council tax benefits and residential care costs • funds are kept separate from any other funds and can protect a vulnerable person from any inappropriate use of the monies • any income tax or capital gains tax is assessed at the rates of the donor and they can take advantage of their personal allowances. The transfer into the trust is not an

Variation of the duty to inform and consult For a relevant transfer under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE Regs 2006), SI 2006/246 taking place on or after 1 July 2024, the variation to the duty to inform and consult is extended to allow an employer to consult with its employees directly if, at the time the employer is required to inform and consult in respect of a TUPE transfer: • the employer is a small business (ie it employs fewer than 50 employees) undertaking

The duty to make reasonable adjustments set out in section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 (EqA 2010) comprises three requirements. The element that is common to all three requirements is that they will only apply where a disabled person is put at a substantial disadvantage in relation to a 'relevant matter' in comparison with people who are not disabled. The requirements are to take such steps as is reasonable: • where a 'provision, criterion or practice' puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage, to avoid the substantial disadvantage • where a ‘physical feature’ puts a disabled person

Unless a worker opts out of his rights, he has the right to work no more than an average 48-hour working week. For further information, see Practice Note: Hours of work and working time, in particular the sections headed: The maximum working week and Opting out of the maximum working week. In relation to young workers, Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR 1998), SI 1998/1833, reg 5A specifies that, where a young worker has two or more employers, hours worked for both

Under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996) an employer cannot make any deductions from the wages of a worker unless: • the deduction is required or authorised to be made by virtue of: ◦ a statutory provision, eg the requirement to make deductions for income tax or National Insurance contributions via Pay As You Earn (PAYE), or ◦ a relevant provision of the worker's contract, eg where

There is no stand-alone right for an employee to require the employer to produce evidence that the employee may find useful in establishing grounds for a claim for wrongful dismissal. However, the employee’s adviser may wish to consider: • the disclosure obligations of parties to employment tribunal proceedings • the right to request access to personal data Disclosure In relation to employment tribunal proceedings, the employment tribunal has the power to order the parties (or other persons) to: • disclose documents or information to a party to proceedings (by providing copies or otherwise), or • allow a party to inspect such material The tribunal may order ‘standard disclosure’, of: • the documents or information on which a party relies • the documents or information that adversely affect a party's case • the

The statutory consultation obligations are triggered where an employer is proposing to dismiss as redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within any period of 90 days or less. The statutory obligations comprise the duties: • to provide information to appropriate representatives • to consult with appropriate representatives • to notify the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), using the HR1 form Duty to inform and consult As to the duty to inform and consult, the key question is how many employees the employer is proposing to dismiss: • if an employer is proposing to dismiss 100 or more employees, the consultation must begin at least 45 days before the date on which the employer proposes that the first of those dismissals should

Where an employer fails to pay sums owing under a settlement agreement, the employee may seek to enforce their rights by bringing a claim for breach of contract. A claim for breach of contract may only be brought in the employment tribunal if: • it is not a claim for breach of a contractual term:

For information on contractual redundancy payments generally, see Practice Note: Contractual redundancy payments. A contract can be made up of all or any of: • express terms • implied terms • imposed terms • incorporated terms For further information, see Practice Note: Types of contractual term in employment. For information on the legal and practical considerations that arise in relation to a change (or purported change) to an employee's terms and conditions of employment, see Practice Note: Changing terms and conditions of employment. An employment contract may, like any other contract, be amended at any time either: • in accordance with the terms of the contract itself • with the agreement of all the parties to the contract The first step is to ascertain the terms of the contract

In this Q&A, the reference in question will comprise personal data, so that the employer will need to ensure that it can rely on a lawful condition within Article 6(1) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). If the enquiry comprises special categories of personal data, the employer will need to ensure, in addition, that it can rely on a specific condition for the processing under Article 9(2) of Regulation (EU) 2016/679, GDPR. For further information, see the sections headed ‘Personal data’, ‘Personal data—lawful processing conditions’ and ‘Special category data—specific processing conditions’ in Practice Note: The UK GDPR and DPA 2018: key data protection issues for employment lawyers. ‘Consent’ is, of course, a lawful condition for processing under Article 6(1)(a). Under Regulation (EU) 2016/679, GDPR ‘consent’ is

For information on payments out of the state guarantee fund (the National Insurance Fund) generally, see Practice Note: Redundancy—insolvency and the state guarantee fund. Where the employer is liable under an Acas-conciliated COT3 agreement to make a payment in respect of the statutory redundancy payment and refuses to pay, the employee can apply to the Redundancy Payments Office for payment out of the National Insurance Fund even if the employer

This Q&A assumes that the statutory consultation obligations under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 do not apply. While the question of how the pool should be defined is primarily a matter for the employer to determine, this does not preclude the employment tribunal from holding that the employer’s decision is flawed so that the employee selected by the employer has been unfairly dismissed; the employment tribunal is entitled to scrutinise the employer’s