Employment law to change

The Government proposes to overhaul employment law to prevent new recruits in small companies from making unfair dismissal claims. This would have a lesser effect in design than other areas, according to the industry’s two trade bodies.

New staff in up to 90 per cent of UK groups may lose protection against unfair dismissal if the proposals, announced this week, are made law.

But Chartered Society of Designers director Brian Lymbery and Design Business Association chief executive Ian Rowland-Hill both agree exemptions would have little effect on design. “Good design employers cultivate their staff – it’s a people-driven business and design groups are only as good as the people they employ,” comments Lymbery.

Rowland-Hill says the “number of instances [in design] where problems have arisen in that area are relatively small and have been satisfactorily sorted out, generally without recourse to tribunals”.