What do you need to know about the Uber Employment Tribunal Case and how will this affect employment rights?

In a landmark decision, an Employment Tribunal has held that Uber, popular smart-phone taxi app, must treat its drivers as 'workers' opposed to self-employed. This gives Uber drivers a range of employment rights whilst placing obligations on Uber to uphold these. However, this case is likely to have wide reaching implications. This blog will look at the key facts of the Uber case and tell

In 2015, 77% of university students worked to help fund their studies. With the new university year beginning, what do employers, and students, need to know about hiring students?

1. ' Regulations for Younger Workers '

Most university students are over the age of 18, but some students may be younger. Workers under the age of 18 have additional employment rights. For example 16 & 17 year olds are entitled to a 30 minute rest break if they work more than 4.5 hours. It is

If you are considering making alterations to your property it is important to make sure that you have all necessary permissions before getting started.

Depending on what you are planning to do, you may need Planning Permission, a Building Warrant and/or Listed Building Consent from your local authority. Your architect can assist with this and with the completion of any necessary application forms.

Some alterations can be carried out as "permitted development" and therefore do not need permission but it is always best to check

In August 2016 a TUC survey of 1,500 women found that more than half of women of the women surveyed have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual harassment is a key issue in the workplace today that has a severe impact on employers and employees. With this in mind we look at what you need to know about sexual harassment at work.

What is Sexual Harassment?

Sexual Harassment is a broad term that covers a variety of situations. Both men and women can be

A power of Attorney is something often associated with the elderly and young people may ask - why would I need a power of attorney? However this important legal document is something everyone should consider putting in place. Accidents or illness can, unfortunately, occur at any age and granting Power of Attorney can ensure that someone you trust is able to manage your affairs and make important decisions about your health and well being if something was to happen to you in the future. In

You may be aware of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) updates that involved a request for all charities to report Notifiable Events. Whilst there is no legal requirement to report an event, OSCR are keen to encourage charities to report to them when there has been a significant event which may or may not have a negative impact on an individual charity or the wider charity sector.

Types of notifiable events can be as follows:-

• Fraud and theft
• Substantial financial loss
• Incidents

You may be aware of developments requiring all UK private companies, including companies limited by guarantee and UK LLPs, to keep a Person of Significant Control (PSC) Register.

This has been introduced by the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 to increase corporate transparency by creating a full picture of the ownership of businesses.

Registered Social Landlord (RSL) - Co-operative and Community Benefit Society

Most RSLs are societies registered under the Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014 (formerly the Industrial and Provident Societies

Earlier this month a Scottish letting agent pled guilty to an offence under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. What was perhaps surprising was that the 'offence' committed by the letting agents was the failure to lodge deposits with an approved tenancy deposit scheme on behalf one of their landlord clients.

In terms of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2011, a landlord has a duty to pay any deposit received from a tenant into an approved tenancy deposit scheme within 30 working

Notwithstanding the recent Brexit vote, the European Convention on Human Rights (EHCR) remains part of our law at least for now. It's impact on the social rented sector has been clear since the decision of the Supreme Court in Manchester City Council v Pinnock [2010] CSIH 78 (particularly Article 8: the right to respect to respect for private and family life). In short, in social rented eviction cases, the courts are required to balance the rights of the parties facing eviction and consider whether granting

In a year that has seen headlines dominated by strikes of junior doctors and Scotrail staff, the introduction of the Trade Union Act 2016, is likely to be of great interest to both employers and employees. The Trade Union Act 2016 (TUA), which is expected to come into force throughout the year, incorporates a number of changes for the Trade Union regime throughout the U.K.

The Key Changes

Balloting

Before industrial action can take place, a Trade Union must ballot its members. Members will cast

Trying to decide which career path to go down towards the end of my time at school was a difficult and somewhat daunting process, as is the case for a lot of school leavers. The decision lies between further education, such as college and university, or to go straight into the big bad world and get a job. I know first-hand how hard a choice this can be. I found the idea of further education very appealing however I wanted to be earning money. I

On Friday the 24^th June 2016 the country woke up to the news that the majority of voters in the United Kingdom had voted to leave the European Union. Whilst the implications of this referendum will be far reaching, the question on a number of people's lips is how will Brexit affect employment law?

The UK will continue to remain a member of the EU until there is agreement on when we will leave. However, there are a number of employment issues that are

Solicitors, healthcare and social work professionals, and others need to be aware of the major changes in practice required to ensure compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They must apply these changes now, within the framework of existing legislation, pending upgrading of the UK's adult incapacity and mental capacity legislation. The UK ratified the Convention without reservation in 2009. The UK also ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention, allowing citizens who claim to be victims of breach of

It has been over two years since the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 was passed by the Scottish parliament.

This Act proposes to introduce significant changes in many areas of housing management and practice for registered social landlords.

It would now appear that the implementation of the various proposals will commence this year.

Draft versions of guidance on the following topics will be available towards the end of June (edit September 2016: guidance not yet issued but should follow at some point this year).

• Legal Framework

In February of this year I began my Modern Apprenticeship with TC Young in Edinburgh. I am an Admin Assistant within the Property Department and the tasks I carry out as a modern apprentice can differ day to day. Some of the duties are:

• Collecting mail in the morning as well as alternate evenings
• Doing the filing for the solicitors
• Collecting and preparing banking and recorded deliveries
• Writing cheques
• Preparing meetings and clearing up once finished
• Arranging for delivery/collection from our offsite storage company
• Undertakings

People with intellectual disabilities are promised the same rights to control their own lives as everyone else by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They are also promised the support needed to make this a reality. Supported decision-making is one way of doing that. Co-decision-making is another. But how can these be arranged in practice?

Your abilities to assert and achieve what you want may already be limited, or may become less in future. How can you ensure that you

The Department for Business Innovation and Skill (BIS), together with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), commissioned research exploring pregnancy and maternity related discrimination in the workplace. The research involved interviews with over 3,000 mothers and over 3,000 employers in Britain.

While you may not all have the time or inclination to read the full report, the information that stemmed from the research is worrying, considering rights in relation to maternity and pregnancy discrimination have been around for so long.

Some of the key

An area of employment law which is gaining more ground is the issue of managing employees working from home. In fact I have been asked by a number of clients about this issue given more employees are making flexible working requests to work from home. It is important that employers are aware of how to manage employees working from home and using their own devices.

Homeworking is a type of flexible working which, depending on the agreement between employer and employee, can be also used

Within the last few weeks, Scottish Ministers have advised stakeholders of their proposals for the training requirements for letting agents to go with the Code of Practice.

The training requirements will apply to the most senior person in a letting agency business (unless they have no input into the letting agency's day-to-day running) and all persons directly concerned with managing and supervising of a business letting agency work.

There must also be at least one person per office (where relevant letting agency work is carried

Most of the headlines for the Private Rented Sector (PRS) in Scotland have been grabbed by the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Bill, which was passed after the stage 3 debate this month and set to become an Act. However, before we get an entirely new tenancy regime for the PRS, the sector will have to grapple with mandatory letting agent registration and code of conduct.

Part 4 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 makes provision for the registration, regulation and training requirements for letting agents