Employment Rights Bill & Fair Pay Agreement Timeline Released – Latest Resources

You can find below links to resources and guidance on matters relating to the government’s proposed Fair Pay Agreement (FPA) for the adult social care sector. The proposed legislation will give the Secretary of State for Business and Trade powers to form a negotiating body to create a legally binding sector minimum wage. As the exact form this negotiating body will take has not yet been decided, this page will be updated as more information is released.

Employment Rights Bill Implementation Roadmap

The Government has today (1 July) released its roadmap for the phased implementation of the Employment Rights Bill after it passes through Parliament.

Repeal of the previous Government’s restrictions on the rights of workers to strike will be implemented immediately; however, other provisions will be commenced as follows.

April 2026:

• Collective redundancy protective award – doubling the maximum period of the protective award.
• ‘Day one’ paternity leave and unpaid parental leave.
• Whistleblowing protections.
• Establishment of the Fair Work Agency – an enforcement body for labour rights.
• Removal of the lower earnings limit and starting ‘day one’ rights to Statutory Sick Pay.
• Simplification of the trade union recognition process and electronic and workplace balloting.

October 2026:

• Ending fire and rehire practices unless employers are required to by financial pressures
• Secondary legislation to establish the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body to set up the sector’s fair pay agreement.
• Requiring employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees
• Introducing an obligation on employers not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties
• A package of trade union measures including new rights and protections for trade union representatives, extending protections against detriments for taking industrial action and strengthening trade unions’ right of access.

2027:

• Gender pay gap and menopause action plans (introduced on a voluntary basis in April 2026) to promote gender equality and support women’s health in the workplace.
• Enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers.
• Further harassment protections, specifying reasonable steps which will help determine whether an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment to provide clearer guidance and stronger enforcement against harassment.
• Bereavement leave to give workers time to grieve with job security.
• Ending the exploitative use of zero-hour contracts by requiring employers to offer employees guaranteed hours after a probationary period.
• ‘Day 1’ right to protection from unfair dismissal.
• Improving access to flexible working.

The Government will continue to consult throughout the autumn on the measures on the Fair Pay Agreement, Unfair dismissal, Zero-hours contracts, Fire and rehire, trade union access and balloting, bereavement and pregnant workers.

Anthony Collins Employment Rights Bill Hub

To help providers in the sector navigate this ‘generational change’ and the impact of these key provisions and others, the employment and pensions team at Anthony Collins has developed an Employment Rights Bill Hub. The essential purpose of the Hub is twofold.

• One – provide one landing page for all documentation relating to the ERB and our key insights into the changes.  This includes the ERB itself, explanatory documents, consultation documents, and draft regulations (when they are published) together with our guidance as to what will change, how it will differ from the current provisions and the expected time frame for change. Bringing all these together on an intuitive and informative page with easy-to-follow tabs means no need for fruitless searches on the Parliamentary website or trawling through pages of legislation.
• Two – provide a subscription service to users. Given the number of changes, many major and hugely relevant to the health and social care sector, it is key that providers are kept up to date with consultations, draft regulations, amendments to the legislation dates and commencement dates.  The subscription service, alongside the Hub provides such an update. Free of charge, all subscribers will receive updates on any changes when they happen, together with practical insight into specific sector issues. Given the expertise and sector knowledge of the team at Anthony Collins, this will be a valuable resource for providers to ensure they understand the specific ramifications of the changes for their workforce and the provision of services.

Summary of the Government’s Impact Assessment

The Government released a 30-page impact assessment of the policy in October 2024. Community Care wrote the article linked below with an explainer of the key points. Headline parts of the impact assessment are that the government expect the higher costs to be borne by local authorities and self-funders. It’s expected that 40% of the costs of increased wages will be recovered by the Treasury in the increased tax revenue and reduced welfare expenditure. This is before factors like a potential reduction in NHS spending and reduced recruitment costs for the sector are factored in, the scale of which is uncertain.

Unsurprisingly, the projected impact on providers has been assessed to be negative as labour costs are increased, and the government believe the “scope […] to respond to these costs is limited”. They also state it could lead to some providers leaving the market if the extra costs are not offset by increased funding from the Treasury and local authorities.

A link to the Community Care article is here: