Work and Families Bill - a mess for small businesses
The Work and Families Bill has made it through the House of Commons and is now heading for the Lords. It's been roundly criticised for a number of reasons, and small business organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) have pointed out its potentially damaging effects on small businesses.
The main concerns can be summarised as follows:
- It will extend maternity leave to nine months and open the way to twelve-month leave periods in future legislation. The Government has promised businesses they will be compensated, but the sums planned don't take into account the extra time that will need to be spent on paperwork.
- The information and guidelines the Government will provide are seen as inadequate. During the debate, MPs laughed at the idea of sending business owners a CD-ROM.
- The total annual costs to businesses in general are far from clear.
Because of the limited amount of time available, Parliament has not yet discussed several aspects of the Bill which are likely to affect small businesses.
- Personnel Today points out that it will give the Government power to impose an unlimited increase in redundancy pay. Under last year's Warwick Agreement with the unions, the Government promised it would 'up-rate' redundancy pay. Up-rating is Whitehall's term for increasing.
- Businesses, and the business environment, change increasingly fast. Somebody returning after a year of maternity leave may need retraining, or a certain amount of time to settle back into their job.
The Bill is intended to be family-friendly, and that's a laudable aim. But since many small businesses are family businesses, it may have the opposite effect. Now it's taken shape, we'll be following it on this blog as it progresses through the rest of the debate.
