The fact that a written agreement is not signed would normally suggest that the parties involved do not yet wish to be contractually bound by it. However, the lack of a signature (or signatures) is only one of the factors that the courts will consider when establishing whether the parties intended to enter into a legally binding agreement.
The National Insurance Contributions Act 2015 introduced a new section 9B into the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992. This provision zero-rates employers’ national insurance contributions in respect of ‘relevant apprentices’.
HMRC has launched a consultation on proposals that, in the government’s view, aim to simplify the tax and NIC treatment of termination payments. The main proposal, on which HMRC is seeking views, is to remove the distinction between contractual and non-contractual termination payments, so that the majority of such payments is taxed in the same way.
On 29 July 2015, the Higher Education Statistics Agency announced the publication of a brief code of practice for higher education collections. The Code, published on HESA’s website, contains three guiding principles, ‘honesty, impartiality and rigour’.
On 27 July 2015, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs launched a consultation on a revised Waste Duty of Care Code of Practice. The Code has statutory force, and is designed to support section 34 of the Environment Protection Act 1990, which imposes a duty of care on any person that handles controlled waste.