by Oscar Venus | 30 Jan, 2025 | Employment
Before the summer recess of Parliament, the Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP,published a Written Ministerial statement setting out the Government’s ambitions for the legal migration system, including new reforms which will link migration policy and visa controls and labour market policies. These consist of:
- The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), Skills England, the Industrial Strategy Council, and the Labour Market Advisory Board will work together to support a coherent approach to skills, migration and labour market policy, engaging and working closely with the Devolved Governments;
- The Government will commission the MAC to review the reliance on international recruitment in key sectors, commencing with IT and engineering; and
- The Government will provide additional resources to the MAC to enable it to work more strategically to forecast future trends.
The Statement also confirms that the Government will keep some changes made earlier this year by the previous administration, including:
- Restricting most overseas students from bringing family members to the UK;
- Restricting the ability of care workers and senior care workers to bring dependants with them; and requiring all care providers sponsoring migrants in England to register with the Care Quality Commission;
- Increasing the general salary threshold for those arriving on Skilled Worker visas by 48% from £26,200 to £38,700;
- Abolishing the 20% going rate discount so that employers can no longer pay migrants less than UK workers in shortage occupations; and
- Introducing measures announced on 23 May to reduce the potential for abuse on the student and graduate visa routes, working closely with the Department for Education to ensure the measures are effective.
Finally, the statement explains the need to balance respect for family life with the economic wellbeing of the UK. The Government will commission the MAC to review the financial requirements in the Family Immigration Rules, keeping the minimum income requirement in the Spouse/Partner route at £29,000 until the review is complete.
The following may also be of interest:
On 30 July, the Immigration Minister, Seema Malhotra MP published Written Ministerial Statement on Afghan Resettlement:
Written statements – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament.
- This Government is implementing the commitment that families who were separated by the military evacuation from Kabul in August 2021 can be reunited in the UK.
- Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme Pathway 1 Stage 2: Separated Families opened on Tuesday 30 July. The window to submit an expression of interest will remain open for 3 months until 30 October 2024.
On 29 July, the Immigration Minister published a Written Ministerial statement on the European Entry/Exit System (EES)
Written statements – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament
- The UK Government is working to maintain border fluidity with the European Union throughout the implementation of the new Entry/Exit System, ensuring UK nationals and residents can continue to access European destinations effectively and efficiently.
- Provides an update on the immediate steps being taken to improve preparations and levels of readiness.
FIS is working with the Construction Leadership Council to ensure that the Government understands the impact of current policy on the construction sector (more here) and has advice on employing migrant workers in our employment hub here.
To help members recruit overseas skilled workers to fill the skills gaps being experienced in the industry which is inhibiting growth, FIS has partnered with specialist immigration lawyers, Migrate UK to help members to explore whether hiring overseas skilled workers is a viable route for them Find out more here
by Clair Mooney | 16 Jan, 2025 | Employment
Members will be aware that from 1 April 2025 the changes to employers National Insurance Contributions will be implemented. Measures include:
- Secondary Threshold, currently set at £9,100 a year, and will be reduced to £5,000 a year
- Increases to the secondary Class 1 NICs rate from 13.8% to 15%
- Increases to the maximum Employment Allowance from £5,000 to £10,500
- The restriction that currently applies to the Employment Allowance where employers who have incurred a secondary Class 1 NICs liability of more than £100,000 in the tax year immediately prior to the year of the claim are unable to claim it — this means all eligible businesses and charities will be able to claim a greater reduction on their secondary Class 1 NICs liability, irrespective of what their secondary Class 1 NICs liabilities were in the tax year prior to the year of the claim.
There is a useful calculator here to help work out the increase: https://zelt.app/blog/how-to-calculate-employers-ni-employer-s-ni-calculator-2024-2025-2026/
Salary Sacrific
A Salary Sacrifice scheme can help reduce NI costs for both employers and employers. If you are not already offering Salary Sacrifice, it is something worth considering – only 41% of small and medium enterprises offer salary sacrifice, compared with 85% of large organisations.
A salary sacrifice arrangement, which is Government backed, is an agreement to reduce an employee’s entitlement to cash pay, usually in return for a non-cash benefit. An employee agrees with their employer to give up part of their salary in exchange for non-cash benefits, the most common of these being pension contributions.
This means that the employee’s gross salary is reduced by the amount they sacrifice. The result is lower National Insurance contributions for both the employee and employer. For example: £5,000 paid through salary sacrifice into a pension would save an employer c.£750 at the April 2025 NI rate and the employee would not paying tax or NI on the amount sacrificed.
As an employer, you can set up a salary sacrifice arrangement by changing the terms of your employee’s employment contract. Your employee needs to agree to this change. If your employee wants to opt in or out of a salary sacrifice arrangement, you must alter their contract with each change. This can be done by way of a Variation to Contract letter. Your employee’s contract must be clear on what their cash and non-cash entitlements are at any given time.
You can find out more information on the government website.
by Clair Mooney | 16 Jan, 2025 | Employment, Sustainability
New commercial food waste legislation comes in to force in the UK from the end of March 2025. This is part of Defra’s simpler recycling plans that aim to improve recycling rates, simplify waste management, and benefit the environment. It means that from this date businesses with 10 employees or more will have to separate food waste from other rubbish streams. Companies must store food waste in separate bins and arrange collection by licensed waste carriers.
The new default requirement for most workplaces will be four containers:
- residual (non-recyclable) waste
- food waste (mixed with garden waste if appropriate)
- paper and card
- all other dry recyclable materials (plastic, metal and glass)
Mandatory food waste separation aims to ensure less waste food makes its way to landfill sites and is instead disposed of responsibly.
by Clair Mooney | 10 Jan, 2025 | Employment
The Construction Industry Joint Council (CIJC) has published the 2025 holiday entitlement with guidance on annual and public/bank holidays that apply under the CIJC Working Rule Agreement. There is an additional paid day’s holiday to bring the Working Rule Agreement in line with other industry agreements, taking the annual entitlement to 23 days plus eight public/bank holidays per year.
by Clair Mooney | 9 Dec, 2024 | Building Safety Act, Employment, Skills
The Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG) has announced a comprehensive restructure to enhance competence and safety standards across the built environment. Established in response to the Grenfell Tower Fire and subsequent Hackitt Review, ICSG has now transitioned to become a formal working group of the Industry Competence Committee (ICC) under the Building Safety Regulator (BSR), signalling a strategic shift towards more rigorous industry-wide competence frameworks.
“The new relationship between the ICC and the ICSG is key to transforming the competence of the industry. ICC aims to set expectations for industry and challenge it. The ICSG is where industry can collaborate to meet those challenges. The ICSG also provides the ICC with a clear picture of what industry is doing, feeds back on what challenges industry is facing, and which levers can be pulled to improve competence. We are able to work together on developing solutions and aim to provide clear messages and guidance for the industry and the public about competence,” commented Hanna Clarke, Co-Chair of the ICSG and Digital and Policy Manager at the Construction Products Association.
ICC and the ICSG relationship
ICSG purpose
ICSG was set up to enable culture change in relation to competence across the built environment. It does this by providing the UK built environment industry access to appropriate competencies, so they may safely contribute to the creation and use of built environments and can demonstrate their competence to others.
ICSG structure
The Industry Competence Steering Group (ICSG), formerly known as the Competence Steering Group, is Co-Chaired by Hanna Clarke and Gill Hancock, Head of Technical Content at the Association for Project Management.
Under its new chairs, the ICSG has restructured. This will better cover the built environment’s disciplines and support existing work across the industry.
The new structure includes sector-led groups, key topic groups, and working groups. They currently bring together contributions from over 60 professional and trade bodies and 1500 individuals in the built environment, with membership of the sector led groups still growing.
These groups will produce competence frameworks mapped to the BS 8670 series. They will also create guidance and implementation programs to enable culture change in relation to competence across the built environment. Another key role of these groups is to provide forums for industry feedback relating to the understanding of legislation and barriers to its implementation.
ICSG is working with the BSI to create a communications hub. It will be a central repository of all ICSG’s work for the industry to access. More information on this and the competence frameworks will come in Spring 2025.
ICSG’s focus is to keep people safe through competent practices and ethical behaviours throughout the built environment. Central to this is enabling collaboration and ongoing sharing of best practice, learning, and resources to support continuous improvement in industry competence. ICSG closely collaborates with the BSI and its committee CPB/1 – Competence in the Built Environment, contributing to many of the standards that are in development. It also has a strong relationship with the Construction Leadership Council, both with their contributing to the work on competence and in the aim to join up the competence work with the other industry initiatives that the CLC is leading on.
“The ICSG has end to end coverage from construction products to demolition and disposal, including in occupation. By collaborating with both industry and the Building Safety Regulator we believe we can enable real culture change, in relation to competence, across the built environment,” said Gill.
If you are interested in helping shape competence frameworks and guidance within your sector or want to find out more about the ICSG, please contact the relevant sector group lead (see appendix 1).
Iain McIlwee, Chief Executive at FIS, said: “This is the next stage in what is undoubtedly the biggest collaborative effort I have witnessed in construction, apart from the COVID response. It has been both rewarding and encouraging to be involved and take a lead on behalf of specialist trades through the Super Sector work. We have learned so much from this process, and I applaud the visionaries who have led it. Great work has been done within the various disciplines, and the next stage is very much about bringing it together and ensuring that it is peer-reviewed effectively and with empathy by the wider supply chain. This will ensure that as we implement it, it is coordinated, proportionate, and ultimately supports a better construction process.
“We look forward to the next stage of collaborative working and supporting the next iteration of this essential work.”
by Oscar Venus | 22 Nov, 2024 | Employment
A report published today (20 November 2024) by the Construction Leadership Council sets out the four main issues which have led to the slow uptake of electric vehicles in the construction industry. They are:
- Home charging
- On site charging
- Legislation regarding Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) Electric Vehicles (EVs) o Cost of ownership
The report studies the impact of each issue and makes recommendations to overcome them, with the aim of increasing electric vehicle uptake in the sector, currently at just 5.2%.
Firstly, for home charging, the issues centre around employees taking work vehicles home and the availability of home charging facilities, as well as associated costs and liabilities. Recommendations include improvements to Public Charge Networks, and consideration to installing a separate meter in employee homes, allowing expenditure on work EVs to be easily monitored.
Secondly, regarding on site charging, conflicting priorities on worksites can mean there is insufficient capacity to connect EVs to the mains supply for charging. Alternatives such as hydrogen powered generators have been considered to increase capacity, but costs can be prohibitive. Recommendations include a more strategic approach, including potentially leaving permanent charging facilities behind, once the construction job is finished.
Thirdly, legislation is a challenge due to regulations regarding using LCV EVs in place of 3.5t diesel vans. An electric van weighing between 3.5 – 4.25t is classed as an HGV in certain areas of legislation, such as MOT testing, and will require a tachograph to be installed, and speed restricted to 56mph. Recommendations include removing LCV EVs from HGV thresholds to remove these extra requirements.
Fourthly, the cost of electric vehicles continues to be high and is a barrier to ownership or lease. Recommendations include capital offset for firms investing in or leasing electric vehicles, and reduced MOT costs and timings, which would help to further reduce running costs.
Matt Palmer, Industry Sponsor for Net Zero and Biodiversity at the Construction Leadership Council, Executive Director of the Lower Thames Crossing and sponsor of today’s report said: “The UK relies on the infrastructure our industry builds, but we have to do so in a way that is compatible with a Net Zero future, and that includes the vehicles we use – on site, and for our workforce travelling to, from and between sites. Whilst uptake of electric vehicles in the construction industry has been slow to date, I’m optimistic that our report sets out clear actions and suggested policy changes that would make electric vehicle ownership or lease a more attractive option for our whole industry.”
Joanna Gilroy, Group Director of Sustainability, Balfour Beatty said:
“It’s been a tremendous opportunity for Balfour Beatty to support this CLC Sprint Project involving stakeholders from across the industry to align our approach that will enable the uptake of electric vehicles to gain traction in projects across the UK. Throughout this process we have identified consistent challenges faced and recognise the issues of infrastructure, regulation and investment that is required to move the industry collectively forward in reaching Net Zero”.
Construction Leadership Council info here.
