On 18 September 2023, the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Bill received Royal Assent and was expected to come into force in September 2024.
Acas had already published a draft Code of Practice on how employers can handle requests made under the Act.
However, the Employment Rights Bill published on 10 October 2024 has confirmed that the Act has been repealed.
What would the Act have introduced?
The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023 was to be introduced to amend the Employment Rights Act 1996 to give workers and agency workers the statutory right to request a predictable working pattern where:
- there is a lack of predictability as regards any part of their work pattern (fixed term contracts of 12 months or less are presumed to lack predictability);
- the change relates to their work pattern;
- their purpose in applying for the change is to get a more predictable work pattern.
To make the application, workers would have needed to be employed by the same employer (whether or not under the same contract) at some point during the month immediately before the minimum service period (anticipated to be 26 weeks), ending with the making of the application.
The worker would have been able to make a maximum of two applications within any 12-month period.
Employers would have only been able to refuse the request for one or more of the following specific business-related grounds:
- burden of additional costs;
- detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand;
- detrimental impact on the recruitment of staff;
- detrimental impact on other aspects of the temporary work agency's, hirer's, or employer's business;
- insufficiency of work during the periods the worker or agency worker proposes to work; or
- planned structural changes.
If the employer was to fail to deal with the application in a reasonable manner or reject an application based on a reason that is not a specific business-related ground, they could have been subject to a claim.
Employees would have had protection against automatic unfair dismissal under this legislation and protection from being subject to a detriment, where they had made an application for a more predictable work pattern.
Is this it for the Act?
Although the legislation has been repealed, the principles within this Act seem to be sticking around.
The Employment Rights Bill includes the provision to ban one sided flexibility in relation to ‘exploitative’ zero-hour contracts. Workers will have the right to be offered guaranteed hours, and this will be based on the hours the worker works over a defined period (expected to be 12 weeks).
There are further provisions in the Bill that mean that workers on zero-hour contracts will have to be given reasonable notice of a shift and to a cancellation or change of a shift. Workers could also receive compensation if a shift was cancelled without them receiving reasonable notice.
The Bill also states that employers will only be able to refuse a flexible working request on specific grounds. The grounds being very similar to the business-related grounds specified in the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023. There will be a presumption that all employees can work flexibly, where practical.
Rather than implementing the former Conservative’s Act, the Labour government are instead looking to implement their own legislation to include provisions surrounding flexible and predictable working. However, unlike the Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023, it is unlikely that we will see the Employment Rights Bill coming into force for another 2 years, and the provisions in the Bill could change.
Paul Hennity
Employment Law Partner
Paul provides pragmatic and commercial advice to both employers and employees and is highly experienced in dealing with claims in the employment tribunal and negotiating settlement agreements.
