The European Commission is adopting an action plan to tackle the gender pay gap from all possible angles. This action plan presents ongoing and upcoming measures taken by the Commission to combat the gender pay gap in 2018-19, and includes a broad and coherent set of activities to tackle the gender pay gap, mutually reinforcing each other. The action plan prioritises eight areas for action: Improving the application of the equal pay principle. Combating segregation in occupations and sectors. Breaking the ceiling: initiatives to combat ve... Continue reading

All those eligible for Employment Tribunal fee refunds can now apply, following a successful implementation phase of the new refund scheme. The refund scheme comes after Ministers committed to reimbursing those who had paid Employment Tribunal fees following a Supreme Court judgment. The court recognised the important role fees can play, but ruled that the Government had not struck the right balance in this case. July 2013 saw the introduction of a fees system regarding any claim made to an Employment Tribunal, which was fiercely fought at t... Continue reading

Industry experts have called on the government to abandon its high-profile target of achieving three million apprenticeship starts by 2020, after official statistics revealed that the number of apprenticeship starts in the most recent quarter fell 59% year on year. The Department for Education found that 48,000 people began an apprenticeship in England between May and July 2017, compared to the same quarter in 2015-16, when 117,800 apprenticeship starts were recorded. The data includes final full year apprenticeship figures for the 2016-17 aca... Continue reading

Cases of cyber-attacks and corporate espionage are on the rise, according to software provider Urgent Technology. In 2017, one notable high-profile cyber-breach was that of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), in which computers throughout the UK were frozen by an attack of ‘ransomware’. The increasing adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), which connects devices throughout a building or even an entire city, brings many operational benefits by automating building services, but also opens up the real risk of organisations being hack... Continue reading

A new guidance note to help facilities management professionals evaluate the risks to their buildings from terrorism and decide what they should do about them has been published by BIFM. Produced in partnership with the UK Security Expo, which this year focused on the impact of the prolonged terror threat to businesses, the guidance, ‘Counter Terrorism advice for FM’, introduces FM professionals to key parts of terrorists’ thinking and includes a security audit checklist. Peter Brogan, Research and Information Manager, said: “This ... Continue reading