This October sees far reaching changes that will impact businesses of all sizes. The new Age Discrimination Laws will make any discrimination on the basis of age illegal in the workplace whether it is in relation to hiring younger or older staff, promoting or even choosing who goes on training courses.

Another area of change this October is the new Work and Families Legislation. These changes apply to parents of babies due to be born or placed for adoption on or after 1st April 2007, extending maternity and adoption pay.

Other legislation introduced in October includes:

• New National Minimum wage – New regulations increasing minimum wage for adult workers over 22 to £5.35 an hour

• New fire laws – these place more responsibility for fire prevention and safety on the employer. See our article on The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for more details.

• Consumer and Competition law – Relaxation of current rules on hallmarking for precious metals

• Intellectual Property – Changes to make it easier and quicker to register new designs and an upgrading of patent rules to ensure clarity and flexibility

• Employment Act 2002 – Extension of scope of the statutory dispute resolution procedure to new areas including collective redundancies