The Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order 2014 SI 2014/382 has been published. The Order will increase the limits on certain employment tribunal awards and other amounts payable under employment legislation from 6 April 2014.
The notable changes include:
• the limit on the amount of a week’s pay for the purposes of calculating, among other things, statutory redundancy payments and the basic award for unfair dismissal will increase from £450 to £464
• the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal goes up from £74,200 to £76,574. Note that since 29 July 2013 there has also been an additional cap of one year’s salary on the compensatory award for unfair dismissal – Unfair Dismissal (Variation of the Limit of Compensatory Award) Order 2013 SI 2013/1949
• guarantee pay increases from the rate of £24.20 a day to £25; and
• the minimum basic award in cases where the dismissal was unfair by virtue of health and safety, employee representative, trade union, or occupational pension trustee reasons will increase from £5,500 to £5,676.
The new rates apply where the event giving rise to compensation or payment occurs on or after 6 April 2014. For example, in the case of unfair dismissal the rates apply to all dismissals where the effective date of termination falls on or after this date. Where the dismissal or relevant event falls before 6 April, the old limits will still apply, irrespective of the date on which compensation is awarded.
Except for the new rate of guarantee pay these new limits are slightly lower than the new rates for Northern Ireland set out in the Employment Rights (Increase of Limits) Order (Northern Ireland) 2014 SR 2014/39.
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