Beecham Peacock Blog

The Beecham Peacock Legal Blog keeps you up to date with the latest company news and other news from the legal industry.

Employment Law by

A lasting legacy of lockdown has been the movement from the traditional workplace to increased home working. In some cases, workers may now be entirely home based but the more common situation has seen a mixture of home and office-based working often referred to as ‘hybrid’ or ‘agile’ working. For some employees, this will be… Read more »

Employment Law by Anna Harbinson

The Queen’s platinum jubilee is just around the corner. An additional bank holiday has been added to the calendar this year to mark the occasion, but will everyone be entitled to a day off? The starting point will be to consider what your contract states about bank holidays. If your holiday entitlement is ‘X’ days… Read more »

Employment Law by

Fire and rehire is back in the news after USDAW successfully obtained an injunction in the Hight Court to prevent a supermarket dismissing employees with ‘permanent’ or ‘guaranteed’ enhanced ring-fenced terms, and then rehiring them on the same terms, but with the ring-fenced element removed. This is a controversial area of employment law and one… Read more »

Employment Law by

If your employer wishes to terminate your employment they may ask you to consider signing a Settlement Agreement. This is common in cases of voluntary redundancy, early retirement or may be offered as an alternative to continuing with a disciplinary process. You may also wish to approach your employer to see if they would offer… Read more »

Employment Law by

It is refreshing to see that in our society there is now more acknowledgment of the impact that the menopause can have on those who experience it. But has employment law kept pace? Whilst the menopause is not a protected characteristic, it may give rise to discrimination claims for those who are impacted by it…. Read more »

Employment Law by

It feels as though employment legislation has been influenced by COVID for a long time, with furlough, hybrid working, changes to sick pay and mandatory vaccinations to name but a few of the recent employment law developments. But what about long COVID? Long COVID is in itself a developing concept. Increasingly we are hearing in… Read more »

Employment Law by Anna Harbinson

You may have seen stories in the press recently about the right to request flexible working. This right is nothing new and employees with 26 weeks continuous service have been able to request flexible working arrangements under Section 80F of the Employment Rights Act 1996 for many years. You can make one request in any… Read more »

Personal Injury by

Practice head Victoria Wanless takes charge of both personal injury and clinical negligence work at Beecham Peacock. Claims against hospital trusts, GP practices and dental surgeries make up Wanless’ regular medical malpractice workload. On the injury side, the team handles catastrophic matters, employers’ and liability cases, road traffic accidents and occupational diseases. As well as representing private… Read more »

Employment Law by Anna Harbinson

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, more commonly referred to as the Furlough Scheme, was introduced during the pandemic to provide economic support to employers and employees, with a view to ‘saving jobs’ where COVID had caused a downturn in demand. The scheme was initially due to end in October 2020 but has been extended on… Read more »

Employment Law by

Next month marks the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). The scheme, which launched in March 2020, saw the Government contribute towards the payment of up to 80% of the wages of employees who had been placed on furlough. The aim of the scheme was to ease the financial strain of the wage… Read more »

Divorce, Family Law by

UK Divorce Hotspots Revealed We’re living in a time of uncertainty. Lockdown has given many of us the chance to consider what we do and don’t want out of life, and life changing decisions have been made. For some that means filing for divorce and making a fresh start. To gain an accurate insight into… Read more »

Employment Law by

31st March 2020 under Employment Law by Sara Devennie and Anna Harbinson The Government has now published more detail about the Employee Retention Scheme. You may also have heard this referred to as being ‘furloughed’. The scheme enables employers to retain staff on their payroll where they are unable to operate or where is no… Read more »