CIPD's Manifesto for Good Work – key takeaways for employers in the UK

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has published a Manifesto for Good Work including a number of suggestions for employment law reforms including the abolition of 'worker' status.

The Manifesto suggests that given the multiple challenges generated by the need to boost growth, productivity, sustainability, fairness and prosperity, the UK needs a long term workforce strategy underpinned by three themes which it calls healthy work, fair work and skilled work.

• On healthy work its proposals include a single enforcement body for employment standards; a better resourced Health and Safety Executive able to properly address the issue of stress at work; improvements in employment rights for vulnerable workers and the abolition of 'worker' status (thus bringing employment law into line with tax law); reforms to SSP including a rise in the SSP rate to the equivalent of the National Living Wage and a taskforce on AI and the workplace to address both risks and opportunities.
• On fair work its proposals include bringing enforcement of rights under the Equality Act within the remit of a properly resourced single enforcement body; the promotion of flexible work, extended paternity leave at a higher rate of pay; a review and reform of shared parental leave to boost uptake; more menopause friendly workplaces and improved workforce reporting among employers with 250 or more employees.
• On skills it calls for a revitalised industrial strategy led by a new industrial strategy council, a vision for a UK skills system, with a particular focus on the impact of AI and the transition to net zero; a locally delivered business support service focused on start-ups and SMEs (which account for two-thirds of private sector employment); reforms to the Apprenticeship Levy and more flexibility in the immigration system to better enable skills shortages to be addressed. 

Some of the proposals in the Manifesto - particularly the proposals to streamline worker status, improve flexible working and improve the rights of working parents – echo pledges made by the Labour Party in its Employment Rights Green Paper 'New Deal for Working People' in 2021.

We will consider the possibility of employment law reform under a future Labour Government next month.