We sought views on the draft Co-ordination of Regulatory Enforcement Regulations 2017 which include measures to ensure that Primary Authority can operate from 1 October 2017 when the scheme is extended and simplified by provisions in the Enterprise Act 2016. We also asked for views on replacing the ‘categories’ system for defining the scope of partnerships.
We received 64 formal responses and also obtained feedback from around 240 stakeholders who attended engagement events held during the consultation period.
Stakeholders were broadly supportive of the measures in the draft regulations. There was a wider range of views on the proposed new approach for determining the scope of partnerships.
As a result of the consultation responses and wider stakeholder feedback we have amended the draft regulations.
We have also produced draft revised Primary Authority Statutory Guidance. This reflects and clarifies the changes to Primary Authority introduced by the Enterprise Act 2016 and the new secondary legislation. It also describes how the new approach to defining partnerships will work in practice.
The full Government response is published at https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/unlocking-the-potential-of-primary-authority
We invited views on how to improve the UK’s corporate governance framework.
We received 375 responses from interested parties. A summary of the responses is included in the consultation response document.
In the coming months we will introduce new laws to require:
We asked for views on proposals to simplify the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations. We also asked whether we should ban employment agencies and businesses from recruiting solely from other European Economic Area (EEA) countries without advertising in Great Britain.
We received 30 responses to the consultation. Respondents were in favour with the majority of proposals but felt that our proposal to remove regulation 27 (which determines the circumstances in which an employment agency can advertise a position) would have a negative impact on vulnerable people looking for work.
We intend to simplify the regulation for businesses while retaining protections for work-seekers. We will:
Due to concerns raised during the consultation we have decided to keep regulation 27.
We asked for your views on whether the government should devolve Sunday trading rules to local areas, such as cities run by elected mayors and/or local authorities.
We received over 7,000 responses to our consultation. The majority of respondents to the consultation from local authorities, business representative organisations and large and medium business respondents were in favour of our proposal to devolve the power to make decisions on extending Sunday trading hours to a local level. However, Trade Unions, religious bodies and a number of small businesses and individuals who responded were against the proposals.
We propose to devolve the power to extend Sunday trading hours:
We will also strengthen the rights of shop workers to ’opt-out‘ of working Sundays, if they choose. These rights will apply in England, Wales and Scotland, whereas the Sunday trading rules apply in England and Wales only.
We will bring forward these measures through amendments to the Enterprise Bill.
We invited views on proposed changes to Employment Tribunal postponements rules, to help reduce delays and costs in the process.
We received 33 responses to the consultation. You felt that repeated and late postponements could be financially and emotionally costly, but that on occasions a postponement was unavoidable or made sense.
We are changing tribunal postponement rules to: