Blog

The Welsh Assembly has passed legislation to ban parents from smacking their children, following the lead of the Scottish parliament which passed similar legislation in 2019.

In London, concerns about the lack of proper disclosure checks for Uber drivers led to the company’s licence being suspended. The legal battle is still ongoing. In February 2020, Birmingham City Council announced that they were going to trial face recognition to help verify the identity of Uber drivers.

Employment law is constantly changing and 2020 is shaping up to deliver more changes than previous years. Whether you’re an employer or a worker, it’s important to keep up to date with what’s happening in the employment world as it might affect your pay packet.

According to official figures there are around 14.5 million people in the UK who volunteer regularly. Volunteers do everything from working behind the counter at their local charity shop to pushing tea trolleys round hospital wards. Volunteers are an unpaid army who contribute in a multitude of ways to their local economies.

The General Data Protection Regulation, usually abbreviated to GDPR, was introduced across Europe in May 2018. Even though the UK had already voted to leave the EU at that point, the GDPR rules still apply. Most businesses are up to speed already with their GDPR responsibilities, but some are still lacking.

The latest performance figures are out and they show that around the country, police forces are performing better against targets than previously. Nationally, the target of the majority of DBS checks being completed within 14 days is being achieved, but only marginally.

Would you be able to spot a fake passport or driving licence if you saw one? What about a bank statement or utility bill? If your job is to organise DBS checks for people joining your organisation, then being alert for fakes is one of your main responsibilities.

There’s been lots of discussion about how important DBS checks are in order to safeguard children. Teachers, sports coaches and other people working with children usually need an enhanced disclosure check, and the processes for going about this is widely understood. But what happens when you have a young person who wants to work with children or vulnerable adults?

How careful are you with what you write on social media sites? Most people are aware that anything they post on a public feed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or similar might come back to haunt them when applying for a new job. No prospective employer is going to be impressed with posts being critical of your previous employer, or sharing racist or abusive posts.

Having a “family doctor” who can be called upon at any time of the day or night is a thing of the past. Despite successive governments claiming that they want to change the NHS into a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week service, we’re still some way from that. If someone falls ill out of regular surgery hours, but not ill enough to make a trip to A&E, you’ll probably end up seeing an out of hours GP at a drop in centre.