Author Archives: wonkypolicywonk

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About wonkypolicywonk

Wonkypolicywonk is a recovering policy minion, assigned wonky at birth.

Reform of Shared Parental Leave: pass the Senokot

Posted on November 16, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

While a rampant stomach bug is reported to have caused most competitors in last month’s six-day, 250km Marathon Des Sables in the Sahara a nasty bout of the runs, officials at Kwasi Kwarteng’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) face the opposite … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Employment Tribunal stats: When will I see you again?

Posted on November 3, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

So, after a gap of eight months – due to the going live, in March, of a shiny new (and no doubt expensive) Case Management System that it seems cannot reliably count the number of cases it is managing – … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The incredible shrinking SPL take-up figures

Posted on September 27, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

Earlier this month, I wrote here about the law firm EMW and their narrative – eagerly sucked up by a few so-called journalists – about the supposedly low take-up of statutory paternity leave. I suggested that EMW’s narrative is little … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Is the paternity leave system “broken”?

Posted on September 20, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

How many women go on statutory maternity pay in the UK each year? Go on, have a guess. Or maybe you know the number? Perhaps you do. Or maybe you only think you do. According to news reports last month … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Employment Tribunal claims: Will the Lewis-Thomson Theorem pass the test of time?

Posted on June 10, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

With the release this morning of the latest set of quarterly Employment Tribunal (ET) statistics, covering Q4 of 2020/21 (Jan – Mar 2021), and with last week having seen the latest farcical performance of the ‘spot a quirk in the … Continue reading →

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Garbage press reports about ET claims soar since Covid lockdown

Posted on June 1, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

AGE DISCRIMINATION CLAIMS IN SCOTLAND SOAR BY 13,000%, THEN DROP LIKE A BRICK By Amelia Hill, Senior Reporter at the Guardian, Charles Hymas, Home Affairs Editor of the Telegraph, Giles Sheldrick, Chief Reporter at the Daily Express, Steve Doughty at … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

You never miss the ET claims, until they are gone

Posted on May 13, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

With apologies to Chaka Khan, the latest set of weekly HMCTS management information on the backlog of Employment Tribunal (ET) cases – which the Ministry of Injustice has been publishing since the fourth month of the pandemic, alongside that for … Continue reading →

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Employment Tribunals: The Times they are a-changin’

Posted on February 2, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

Yes, as you will know unless you are spending #Lockdown3 on Mars, on Monday the Times newspaper and its Investigations Editor Dominic Kennedy went Back to the Future of 2011, with not one but four articles straight out of the … Continue reading →

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Binary arithmetic

Posted on July 31, 2020 by wonkypolicywonk

News that the global Covid19 lockdown has led to two pandas in Hong Kong Zoo mating for the first time in ten years seems as good a reason as any for me to blog, for the first time, about sex. … Continue reading →

Posted in Equality | Tagged , | 1 Comment

ET claims: no sign of the end of garbage press reports

Posted on May 26, 2020 by wonkypolicywonk

Previously on this blog, I have noted that this year sees the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1970. And I suppose it was only to be expected that one or more law firms would use … Continue reading →

Posted in Equality, Justice, Workers' rights | Tagged , | 2 Comments