Additional protection for armed forces reservists?

Friday 19 July 2013

Earlier this month the Defence Secretary, Phillip Hammond, published a white paper setting out his plans to support the UK’s armed forces reservists and drive up the numbers of reservists.

The paper (called ‘Reserves in the Future Force 2020’) sets out various incentives that will be offered to reservists, reservists’ families and reservists’ employers alongside an investment of over £110 million.

Proposed incentives for reservists

• Individuals will be entitled to paid annual leave when training as well as when on operations. This will equate to a substantial percentage increase in earnings for most reservists.
• The Armed Forces Pension Scheme is to be introduced in April 2015, and will be available to reservists when training and on operations.
• There will be guaranteed access to employment tribunals in unfair dismissal cases (where the cause of the dismissal is the employee’s reservist status) without the need for a qualifying employment period (currently two years).
• There will be a budget of £42 million for new kit and extra training.
• Reservists will be provided with access to health services when training and on operations.

Proposed incentives for employers

• A £500 per month sum will be awarded to small and medium sized companies whilst their reservist employee is mobilised, on top of the allowances already available.
• More notice will be provided to employers of reservists being called up to make it easier for them to plan for these absences.
• Greater recognition will be given for those employers supporting reservists (albeit how this will be done has not been made clear).
• A National Relationship Management Scheme will be introduced in order to strengthen relationships with larger employers.

What it all means

Whilst Philip Hammond has come under fire from some quarters for attempting to create “an army on the cheap” through use of reservists (in response to the cuts that have fallen on the ministry of defence), there is no doubting that becoming a reservist within the armed forces will shortly be considerably more attractive than it has ever been before.

Employers do need to tread very carefully with employees who are reservists. Having your employees called up for service will undoubtedly be inconvenient to any employer. However, the removal of the requirement of a qualifying period of service for reservists wishing to claim unfair dismissal where the dismissal is (arguably) attributable to the employee’s reservist status means that employers need to think twice before treating reservist employees any differently to other employees.

Related articles

• News story: Plans for future Reserve Forces unveiled (gov.uk)