| You might recall that Labour made a manifesto pledge to “bring in the ‘right to switch off’” in their wide-ranging ‘Make Work Pay’ paper. The Times newspaper reported over the weekend that the government is now looking at how such a right will actually operate in practice.
The Times article outlined that the government is considering an approach whereby a Code of Practice on the right to switch off is introduced (we presume by ACAS). Failure to follow this code would not provide a free-standing right to bring a claim in the employment tribunal but any failure to follow it could be taken into account as an aggravating factor when deciding the level of compensation to be awarded in other tribunal claims. It’s possible the government is looking to give the proposed Code of Practice on the right to switch off a similar status to the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Matters. A failure to follow this can result in the amount of compensation awarded being increased by up to 25%. We will need to wait and see exactly what happens in practice because it’s not yet clear whether the focus of the uplift will be breaches of the proposed Code of Practice or of any internal policy put in place by the employer as a consequence. So, watch this space because no final decisions have yet been made. |
