Timewise CEO Clare McNeil looks at what this means for employment rights, work and health.
By Clare McNeil, Timewise CEO
The departure of Angela Rayner and machinery of government changes we have seen in the last few days have exposed some of the tensions that surround the government’s approach to one of its most high-profile pieces of legislation, the Employment Rights Bill. It has also raised questions about whether we are likely to see ‘continuity or change’ in regard to this.
Even before the government reshuffle, the government was facing questions about its intent on the Employment Rights Bill, given the long timescales for implementation of key measures and a lack of resources focused on implementation and enforcement.
But with a new ‘super-ministry’ at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) which is expected to incorporate adult skills under the new Secretary of State Pat McFadden, the drawbacks of this approach may become more apparent. The very groups DWP (and HM Treasury) urgently need to get back into the workplace – those who are economically inactive due to disabilities and long-term sickness and their parents and carers – are mostly likely to do so with exactly the flexible, secure and predictable work the Employment Rights Bill encourages employers to offer. For example, as many as two-thirds of disabled people who are currently not working and receiving incapacity or disability benefits need to work flexibly or part-time to get back into work, as the Resolution Foundation recently found.
One of the arguments against the proposed legislation on flexible working and zero-hours contracts is that it is unworkable. But look at what businesses are doing rather than what lobby groups are arguing on their behalf: increasingly employers are offering minimum guaranteed hours, giving workers more say and control over their shift patterns and fair notice of both schedules and changes to stay competitive in a challenging recruitment market. We published many examples from leading employers in Timewise’s Ending the Two-Tier Workforce report earlier this year.
The expected transfer of adult skills into the DWP portfolio raises hopes of closer working with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) on a whole set of issues – from the role of employers in young people’s employment, to improving poor employer utilisation of skills which leaves so many talented (often part-time) workers behind and businesses missing out on talent. Even before these changes in government, a busy autumn was shaping up on the work and health front. Three key events Timewise will be focused on:
The Employment Rights Bill will be the subject of ‘ping pong’ between House of Lords and parliament over the next few weeks. House of Lords amendments have paved the way for key proposals on offering guaranteed hours to an employee and paying for cancelled shift work to be removed or watered down.
One of the arguments against these proposals is that they are unworkable. But Timewise has worked with many employers who are voluntarily adopting these ways of working to recruit and retain the best staff. See positive examples from employers such as WH Smith (TG Jones) and Timewise advice for employers here:
We can’t simply legislate our way to better work. In spite of the many pressures facing business, Sir Charlie Mayfield is likely to argue in his Keep Britain Working review that it is in business interests to work with government to tackle rising working age ill health. In our response to the consultation Timewise argues a key test for the Review will be whether it can make a difference for the ‘deskless’ workers in frontline sectors where rates of inactivity are highest – like retail, transport, health & care and construction. That means a voluntary framework alone is unlikely to be enough.
We’d like to see agreements for employers, workers and experts to come together to drive up standards, reduce sickness absence and improve retention rates. The White Paper expected from DWP this Autumn is another vital chance to influence employer behaviour to create the part-time and flexible work those with health conditions and disabilities vitally need.
With more public sector strikes potentially on the horizon for this Autumn, we must recognise that pay is just one factor. Surveys of frontline workers show that self-respect, dignity, autonomy and flexibility at work matter as much as levels of pay. Denied requests for flexible working, heavy workloads and the introduction of new technologies are taking their toll on public sector workers.
Expected workforce plans in health, education, childcare and the fair pay agreement for social care are a chance to turn this around. Critical to this is what the TUC are calling a pro-worker strategy on AI: the use of gig work apps and workforce scheduling tools, for example, can make work more insecure, increasing worker surveillance and undermining regulation. Improving insights into the best and the worst of these technologies is vital and a key focus for Timewise in the months ahead.
Published September 2025
