Author Archives: wonkypolicywonk

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About wonkypolicywonk

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

Employment Bill: other legislative vehicles are available

Posted on April 4, 2022 by wonkypolicywonk

Three weeks ago on this blog, I suggested – with a little help from the great Tracey Thorn and Ben Watts – that ministers have shelved their long-promised Employment Bill (again). And on Friday a (rather thinly evidenced) story in … Continue reading →

Posted in Workers' rights | Tagged | 1 Comment

Missing: the Employment Bill

Posted on March 17, 2022 by wonkypolicywonk

[With apologies to Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt] I step into HansardI’m wonking down your street againAnd past your door, but you don’t live there anymoreIt’s two years since you were in the manifestoAnd now you’ve disappeared somewhere, like outer … Continue reading →

Posted in Workers' rights | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Four-day week: sagas of Icelanders

Posted on February 15, 2022 by wonkypolicywonk

There being an R in the month, there is a new report making the case for a four-day week. This month, the focus is on Wales, with a report by think tank Autonomy, commissioned by the Future Generations for Wales … Continue reading →

Posted in Workers' rights | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Overdue: a Labour Party policy on equal parenting

Posted on January 20, 2022 by wonkypolicywonk

Recently on this blog, I noted that pretty much all that Labour’s otherwise impressively ambitious September 2021 ‘green paper’ on employment rights had to say about securing a much-needed societal shift towards more equal parenting – a shift essential to ending the … Continue reading →

Posted in Parental rights, Workers' rights | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Shared Parental Leave: Someday will surely come

Posted on January 13, 2022 by wonkypolicywonk

A few weeks ago, yet another year came to an end without the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) having concluded its marathon evaluation of the chronically failing Shared Parental Leave scheme. Originally due to start in March … Continue reading →

Posted in Parental rights, Workers' rights | Tagged | 4 Comments

The mother of all statistics

Posted on January 9, 2022 by wonkypolicywonk

Four months ago on this blog, I posed the question: How many women start on statutory paid maternity leave in the UK each year? You’d think this would be a well-known and widely used official statistic, freely available on some … Continue reading →

Posted in Parental rights, Workers' rights | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Single Enforcement Body: Are we nearly there yet?

Posted on December 22, 2021 by wonkypolicywonk

Just over two years ago, in October 2019, I wrote on this blog about the long and difficult gestation of the Government’s proposed Single Enforcement Body for employment rights, to “tackle the deeply fragmented enforcement landscape”. And it is now … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

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