1. Covid responsibilities
As part of the UK Government’s ‘Living with Covid’ plans, from 1 April 2022 the statutory requirement for employers to explicitly consider Covid safety measures in their risk assessments will come to an end. However, employers remain bound by their general health and safety obligations. With the Government’s active step away from the control of Covid-safety in the workplace, it will now be up to employers to guide their employees as to best practice.
Read our blog on Covid caution in the workplace here for more guidance on this.
2. End of the IR35 grace period
In April 2021, the IR35 rules on off-payroll working were extended to the private sector. Employers donned the responsibility of determining the employment status of their contractors in order to decide whether IR35 applies. If it does, the contractor is deemed an employee of the organisation for tax and national insurance purposes.
When the rules were extended to the private sector, HMRC made it clear that during the first 12 months of the new regime, they would take a ‘light touch’ approach to penalties. Fines were not to be incurred for any non-deliberate inaccuracies during this time. The grace period for employers with the new responsibility will come to an end on 6 April 2022.
Employers should be regularly and thoroughly reviewing status determinations to ensure they remain accurate; however, vigilance is more important now that any waiver of fines is soon to be off the table.
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