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Once commercial attempts to resolve a dispute on a construction contract have failed, usually, the first formal port of call is adjudication. This flowchart guides you through the lifecycle of the procedure, from pre-action to enforcement of the Adjudicator's Decision, and identifies the questions you should yourself ask as well as the important issues you should consider, whether you are the referring or responding party.

We've already alerted you to an important age discrimination case this month in which the Court of Appeal looked at whether employers can objectively justify age discrimination when making a significant costs saving in a redundancy situation.  There's also a case about marital discrimination, a couple of cases about redundancy and a couple of TUPE cases this month.

A number of clients have asked us whether, when the qualification period for unfair dismissal is extended to two years from 6 April this year, existing employees with between one and two year's service will be deprived of their unfair dismissal rights.

As highlighted in our earlier communications, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (“BIS”) has published two Calls for Evidence to request views from employers on the current collective redundancy consultation rules and the effectiveness of the 2006 changes to the TUPE Regulations.

Happy New Year. 2012 looks set to be another busy year for HR professionals and employment lawyers. At the end of this month the window will close for responding to the government's call for evidence into the effectiveness of TUPE, of which there is much in this alert, and collective consultation.

In these straightened times we've noticed an increase in whistleblowing claims. In this month's alert we report on two whistleblowing decisions, one from the EAT and one from the Court of Appeal, which find very much in the employer's favour.

As of this week "suitable information" in relation to the use of agency workers by an employer must be included in the information given to employee reps or trade union reps on a TUPE transfer or a collective redundancy exercise (involving 20 or more redundancies).

As is always the case in planning, nothing stands still, and so this bulletin draws together several interesting cases and developments from the past few months. It includes a briefing on the draft National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), articles covering Village Greens, Waste Regulations, Environmental Impact Assessments, local planning procedures, community infrastructure levy changes and planning for schools as well as case law updates.

Chris and I are delighted to be sending our very first alerter as DAC Beachcroft, the merger of our firms and employment teams having taken effect on 31 October. If you would like to know more about DAC Beachcroft, once you have digested this month's employment update, please see our website at www.dacbeachcroft.com.

On Monday, BIS confirmed that the qualifying period for unfair dismissal will increase from 1 to 2 years with effect from 1 April 2012 This month we've had a couple of EAT cases on reasonable adjustments. Both cases look at what adjustments should be made to help a disabled employee return to work.

This month has obviously been the holiday season. We've had very few interesting case law developments. Of most note is an unfair dismissal case which finds that there is no such thing a self dismissal. Writing to absentee employees who have gone silent, stating that they will be deemed to have resigned if they don't get in touch, will usually have an unfair dismissal risk attached.

The courts and tribunals have not yet slowed down for the summer. July's been a busy month. The Supreme Court has looked at employment status arguments. The Court of Appeal has addressed its mind to the vexed issue of what constitutes harassment and the EAT have made a decision that a sick worker's entitlement to paid statutory holiday carried over to the next year despite the fact she had not requested the holiday while off sick...

It has now been announced that the amendments to the Housing Grants,
Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 ("Construction Act") will come into
force on 1 October 2011. The amendments will be bought in via the Part 8 of
the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009
("LDEDC"). In the meantime the revised Scheme for Construction Contracts
remains to be finalised.

In January of this year, the EU Commission published a Paper on "The modernisation of EU public procurement policy: Towards a more efficient European Procurement" Commission's ideas for changes to the EU rules and invited responses from the public (the deadline was 18 April).

In the recent case of Jones v Kaney [2011] UKSC 13, the Supreme Court removed expert witness immunity. Expert witnesses can now be sued for providing negligent expert evidence in the same way as they may be sued for negligently providing any other service.

Our analysis as to how today's budget affects the business community is below.  In summary corporation tax will progressively go down even quicker than expected and there is a restatement that the 50% tax rate is temporary.  The CGT entrepreneurs' relief becomes worth nearly £2 million in tax savings, furnished holiday lettings continue to be reprieved and the Enterprise Investment Scheme is to be made more generous...

Following on from our December update, we have now received further information as to the way post P45 termination payments will be treated for PAYE purposes after 5 April 2011...