April is always a month of change for employment law and employment updates.
We know that over the next 18 months there will be a lot to keep up with but what is happening right now?
Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023
From 6 April 2025 there will be a new statutory leave for parents of babies requiring neonatal care.
The entitlement is for up to 12 weeks Neonatal Care Leave (NCL) for a child who started receiving neonatal care within 28 days of their birth. NCL must be taken within 68 weeks of the birth of the child and is available in two tiers.
NCL will be available (subject to some criteria) to birth parents, adoptive parents, foster parents in a foster to adopt situation and employees who expect to become the legal parents of a child born under a surrogacy arrangement.
NCL is one week for every week your child has spent in neonatal care without interruption.
Any employee who needs to take NCL will need to provide their employer with a written declaration.
Tier 1 begins when the child starts receiving neonatal care and ends on the seventh day after your child is discharged. NCL in tier 1 can be taken in one continuous block or a number of non-continuous blocks of a minimum of one week at a time.
Tier 2 is any remaining period (within 68 weeks after the child’s date of birth) that is not part of the tier 1 period. Leave taken in tier 2 must be taken in one continuous block.
Statutory neonatal care pay may be available to employees who meet the qualifying criteria and who have provided a declaration of intent to take NCL.
National Minimum Wage and National Living Wages rates increase as of 1 April 2025.
If you are an employer who pays national minimum wage or has apprentices your salary budget is going to increase. Even if you currently pay over NMW, with these increases and the lowered age for national living wage you should check that your employees will be receiving at least statutory pay from April. It may also have a knock on effect if your starting salary increases significantly, for those higher up the pay scales if you want to maintain a differential between salary bands.
Rates:
- 21 and over Rate £12.21
- 18-20 Year Old Rate £10.00
- 16-17 Year Old Rate £7.55
- Apprentice Rate (1st year only) £7.55
- Offset accommodation £10.66
Other statutory rate increases
The lower earnings limit which must be met for most statutory payments is increasing from £123 per week to £125 per week.
Maternity, adoption, paternity, parental bereavement, shared parental and neonatal care pay will be £187.18 per week (or 90% of the employee’s average weekly earnings if this figure is less than the statutory rate). This increase usually takes place the first Sunday in April, which in 2024 is 6 April. (SMP and SAP for the first 6 weeks is 90% of the employees average weekly earnings, the following 33 weeks should be paid at the statutory rate).
Maternity Allowance – An employee who earns less than £125 per week but meets the qualifying criteria will be entitled to claim a Maternity Allowance of £187.18 per week (or 90 per cent of their average gross weekly earnings per week if this figure is less than the statutory amount) but this isn’t paid by the employer.
Statutory sick pay will increase on 6 April 2025. The new rate is £118.75 per week, increased from £116.75. You can use the
government calculator to work out daily pay if you are paying SSP.
Additional changes to SSP are on their way but as yet we do not have a date. What we do now know that workers earning under the lower earnings limit who do not currently qualify for SSP will be entitled to receive 80% of their weekly pay and SSP will be payable to everyone from the first day of an absence.
Redundancy pay – The cap on the maximum amount of a week’s pay for calculating redundancy pay becomes £719.
Unfair dismissal compensatory award – The maximum amount that can be awarded for an unfair dismissal compensatory award is increasing to £118,223..00