An agency worker has lost an Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) claim against his former employer in a case that will be of interest to any employer undertaking a programme of restructuring where both agency and permanent staff roles are affected. In Coles v. Ministry of Defence, Mr Coles was a temporary agency worker for the Defence Housing Executive (DHE). DHE commenced a restructuring programme encompassing 530 permanent roles, eventually redeploying one of its permanent staff to take on Mr Coles’ post, resulting in his agency contract bein... Continue reading

Recent weeks have seen the introduction of a number of guidance documents relating to security standards, which will be of interest to Facilities Managers in the UK and Europe. On 1 July the British Standards Institution (BSI) published strategic and operational guidelines for security management, under BS 16000. The new standard provides the basic principles of security management and describes what should be included to effectively manage security in organisations of all types and sizes. BS 16000 provides the vocabulary and basic principl... Continue reading

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has long championed the contribution Human Resources (HR) managers make to the success of an organisation, but as its moniker "the professional body for HR and people development" suggests, its other purpose is as an advocate for the role of Learning & Development (L&D) professionals in helping employees reach their potential. Earlier in the year, International Workplace caught up with its Chief Executive, Peter Cheese, for an exclusive interview. In recent months the Institute has c... Continue reading

The Statistical Bulletin published by Statistics for Wales last week showed a continuing decrease in the number of fires and call-outs for the emergency services.  The statistics cover a 12-year period from 2001/02 to 2013/14 and therefore make interesting reading for anyone who remembers the debate around the introduction of the Fire Safety (Regulatory Reform) Order 2005, which came into force in 2006. The biggest change to fire regulation in the UK for nearly 35 years, the ‘RRO’ as it is commonly known required the owners and occupie... Continue reading

Employers will generally be aware that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) apply to a service provision change whereby a client, who engages a contractor to undertake work on its behalf, reassigns this contract or brings the work in-house. In this situation, the contractor’s employees assigned to that contract or work, will generally have their employment transferred under TUPE to the new service provider on no less favourable terms and conditions that they enjoyed with their employer. Several trib... Continue reading