All businesses need to stay on top of legislative changes. It has never been easier to do so thanks to the introduction of Common Commencement Dates. This means that most new laws affecting businesses now come into play on one of two dates each year, either April or October, making it easier for business to remember compliance timings.

This October sees far reaching changes that will impact businesses of all sizes. The new Age Discrimination Laws will make any discrimination on the basis of age illegal in the workplace whether it is in relation to hiring younger or older staff, promoting or even choosing who goes on training courses.

Another area of change this October is the new Work and Families Legislation. These changes apply to parents of babies due to be born or placed for adoption on or after 1st April 2007, extending maternity and adoption pay. To help businesses deal with this businesslink.gov.uk has developed a new online tool to help employers better understand employees’ rights. You can find this tool on www.businesslink.gov.uk/paternityandadoption

Other legislation introduced in October includes:

• New National Minimum wage – New regulations increasing minimum wage for adult workers over 22 to £5.35 an hour

• New fire laws – these place more responsibility for fire prevention and safety on the employer. Click here for more details.

• Consumer and Competition law – Relaxation of current rules on hallmarking for precious metals

• Intellectual Property – Changes to make it easier and quicker to register new designs and an upgrading of patent rules to ensure clarity and flexibility

• Employment Act 2002 – Extension of scope of the statutory dispute resolution procedure to new areas including collective redundancies

To find out more details of forthcoming legislation please go to www.businesslink.gov.uk/regulationupdates. A one page, at-a-glance, plain English guide shows how new and changing regulations can affect your business and also offers an email alert service.