New Government measures to help firms understand and implement employment regulations are to be introduced by
– Piloting free or subsidised employment law advice visits to employers of less than 50 employees
– Running a number of pilot schemes giving a shared HR resource to small firms
– Consulting on how harmonising start dates for domestic regulations could best work in practice

Publishing the Government response to a report by the Better
Regulation Taskforce on employment regulation, Employment Relations Minister Alan Johnson said: “Better regulation is a priority for the government and an agenda that we have been actively pursuing. We are very aware of the need to strike the right balance between regulation and best practice and we work hard to involve stakeholders throughout the policy-making process.

“The Task Force has acknowledged that the government already had a range of work underway on areas covered by the report. Crucially, following the recent DTI internal review – a new project team has been created which will ensure that all policy makers fully consider alternatives to regulation at the outset of the policy making process.”

Details of the Government response to the Task Force’s
recommendations can be downloaded here.