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Agency workers may soon be entitled to the same salaries, paid time off and sick pay if a bill, soon to be debated in Parliament, succeeds. The private members’ bill, which comes as a result of pressure from Europe, won a crucial vote at the committee stage on Tuesday.

Both opposition parties attempted to stall the passage of the bill through Parliament by proposing an amendment. This was defeated by a concerted effort from Labour backbenchers, so the bill will go through to the next stage.

The employers’ organisations - the EEF and the CBI - both expressed dismay at the vote.

According to the CBI, the bill is” bad legislation that would be damaging for business and would not benefit vulnerable workers.” A spokesman for the EEF said “the bill can only increase manufacturers’ costs and administrative burdens, threatening UK manufacturing jobs.” However, the TUC welcomed the proposals.

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People who have had to stop working due to ill health will soon be able to get early assistance from the Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) according to an announcement by the Pensions Minister, Mike O’Brien.

Draft regulations, published today for consultation, will mean people who have to stop working early because of poor health will be able to get payments from the FAS up to five years before their scheme’s normal retirement age.

Additionally, proposals in these regulations will speed up payments by including a requirement for trustees and other relevant people to provide information three months before a member’s normal scheme retirement age, or within 14 days of a request for that information where the member is unable to work due to ill-health.

The consultation document is available on the Department’s website at http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2008/

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When age discrimination was banned a couple of years ago, it was still OK to have a retirement age of 65 for employees but this did not apply to partnerships. So partners and their legal advisers were unclear how to deal with the issue - might it be necessary to let partners stay on till they dropped?

Now an employment tribunal has looked at the problem and decided it can be acceptable to have a compulsory retirement age of 65 for partners – but only if it can be objectively justified.

The case concerned a ten partner law firm whose partnership deed said that partners must retire when they reach 65. When the senior partner reached that age, he claimed this was discriminatory and contrary to the regulations.

The tribunal accepted the firm’s argument that a compulsory retirement age was necessary to enable the firm to develop and grow by bringing associates into the partnership. Also the firm had a policy of avoiding expulsion of a partner for poor performance as this was though to conflict with the supportive culture of the practice – in other words, even if a partner under-performs he will be allowed to stay on , but there is a cut-off date of 65.

The conclusion from this case is – if you have a partnership agreement and you want a compulsory retirement age, work out some good reasons why the rule should apply.

This decision may be subject to an appeal but, unless it is overturned, it should give some comfort to partnerships that are wondering how to deal with the uncertainty created by the Employment Equality (Age) Discrimination Regulations 2006.

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The Government today announced a substantial package of help for up to 140,000 people who lost savings when their employer-sponsored pension schemes collapsed.

The Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS) will be extended so that:

• All scheme members will be guaranteed 90 per cent of their accrued pension at the date their scheme began wind-up. This will be subject to a cap of £26,000, the value of which will be protected.
• Assistance payments derived from pension accrued post-1997 will be increased each year in payment in line with inflation.
• Assistance will be paid from each failed scheme’s normal retirement age, subject to a lower age limit of 60.
• People who are unable to work due to ill health will also be able to apply for early access to payments from age 60.

For more information you can go to the Department of Work & Pensions website:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/aboutus/news/#lostpensions

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