Changes to employment regulation in Scotland 





Employment regulation in Scotland has been diverging from that of England and Wales in several important ways, especially as a result of constitutional developments that followed the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. Under the Scotland Act 2016, various law-making powers were devolved to the Scottish government, including:


• some powers relating to equal opportunities at work;



• power to implement the socio-economic duty under the Equality Act 2010 (the Fairer Scotland Duty — see below);




• some employment support services; and



• employment tribunal regulation, including rules of procedure. Statutory employment rights, such as the right to claim unfair dismissal or restrictions on the right to strike, remain the responsibility of the Westminster government. Only the employment tribunal system is the responsibility of the Scottish government. 



Since April 2018, public sector bodies in Scotland, including the Scottish government, NHS and local authorities, must consider how to reduce poverty and inequality when making decisions. This is the socio-economic duty (Part 1, EA 10) which in Scotland is called the Fairer Scotland Duty. The duty is to be implemented over a three-year period (see Chapter 7). 



Other significant differences include:


• specific legal duties on Scottish commissioning bodies when engaged in public procurement (see Chapter 12);




• extra obligations in relation to the Public Sector Equality Duty, including a legal obligation to conduct an equality impact assessment, abolished in England in 2011 (see Chapter 7);




• specific anti-blacklisting procurement rules (see Chapter 5); 




• retention of Scotland’s Agricultural Wages Board following the abolition of the board in England (see Chapter 4); and


• measures to try to dilute the impact of anti-union legislation such as the new controls on public sector facility time (see Chapter 5).