So a recent employment tribunal shows how other businesses react when expenses apparently don’t add up.

In the case of Brick Services Limited v Thompson, the employee had been dismissed after submitting an apparently false expenses claim. He had had a hotel receptionist add drinks to a reciept – according to the employee the drinks were legitimate business expense.

At the Tribunal, it was discovered that the business had been trying to get Mr Thompson to agree to less favourable terms and conditions, which he had refused to do. They then jumped at the chance to dismiss him.

As a full investigation had not taken place, this was ruled as a case of unfair dismissal.

Perhaps MPs facing deselection can take some hope from this case.

The European Recommendation and Code of Practice on the Dignity of Women and Men at Work gives ways on how to prevent sexual harassment. Following these measures should go a long way to providing a defence for employers facing harassment cases.

The recommendations made include:

• Issuing a policy statement spelling out that all employees have the right to work in dignity and no form of harassment will be tolerated.
• Make employees aware of this policy.
• Make management aware of their role ensuring that sexual harassment does not occur.

The guidelines also include ways employers can deal with sexual harassment complaints.

This should make it easier for employers to deal with claims, as well as providing a defence against them.

Part of reason the case was notable was the fact that the employers in the case claimed the court should recuse itself as one of the judges was in a position of bias.

However, this was dismissed. The court claimed: “It amounts to a contention that no judge with any particular disability should hear a case involving that disability. A judge with poor eyesight or only one eye could not hear a case about an eye injury, a judge in a wheelchair could not hear a case about an injury which made the victim wheelchair bound and so on. And, taken to its logical conclusion, the argument would meant that a disabled judge could not hear a case about disability living allowance, or a woman judge hear a case about sexual discrimination against a woman.”

The Judge in question was president of the British Tinnitus Association, and the employers claimed this would result in bias as the employees claim was that she developed the condition due to noise at work.

This ruling could have an affect on similar cases in the future.

It is thought that the current system can be easily manipulated and is inadequate. Other reaseons for the change include research which shows that work is beneficial to employee health, while being out of work can reduce wellbeing.

The so called “fit notes” will revolutionise employment law in the UK. Rather than a GP deciding that a person is unfit to work, they will be able to decide if people can take on reduced duties.

GPs will be abel to recommend:

• Reduced working hours.
• Amended duties.
• A phased return to work.
• Modification to the workplace.

It is hoped that this scheme will cut down on the £13 billion a year that is lost through abscences from work due to sickness.

The case of Central and NW London NHS Foundation v Abimbola set the precedent for cases where mutual trust and confidence between employer and employee has been lost.

Mr Abimbola had been dismissed from his position as a psychiatric nurse after it was ruled in an internal hearing that a restraining method he used amounted to assualt.

He took the case to an Employment Tribunal which ruled that, although the Trust believe that Mr Abimbola has used disporportionate force, there was no grounds for this.

It also ordered his reinstatement, which the Trust appealed.

At the appeal hearing, it was ruled that trust between employer and employee had been lost, and it was decided that compensation should be paid in place of reinstatement.

The case of T W Nicholson v Grainger PLC was affected by the 2007 amendment to the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulation 2003. This expanded a belief to any “religious or philisophical belief”.

In the case, Tim Nicholson had been head of sustainability at Grainger PLC. When he was made redundant, he claimed for unfair dismissal on the grounds of religion or belief.

Nicholson claimed he was dismissed due to his “strongly held philosophical belief about climate change and the environment”.

The judge agreed with this opinion, which could have far reaching consequences in future cases.

In the case of Fareham College Corporation v Walters, it was ruled that the failure to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate an employee suffering from a disability meant that his dismissal was unfair – an act of disability discrimination.

This circumvents an earlier ruling which added some restrictions on the definition of a comparator.

In disability discrimination cases, a comparator is defined as an non-disabled employee. The ruling of Lewisham v Malcolm added that this should be an employee in the same position as the claimant, but without a disability.

The more recent ruling gives claimants a way to side-step the comparator issue.

That is because of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcemant Act of 2007.

The Government has also entered talks with the High Court Enforcement Officers Association to set up a service where creditors will be able to ask an officer to enforce the settlement if it is not paid.

This came at the same time as the Ministry of Justice published a paper entitled “Research into Enforcement of Employment Tribunal Awards in England and Wales”, which looked at the problem on non-payment.

While showing that 39% of those awarded compensation had not been paid, the paper revealed that awards with some type of working time directive – such as redundancy or wages – were more likely to be paid in full than other claims.

These are currently unregulated and are commonly used by employment law solicitors working on behalf of employees. As employment law is viewed as “non-contentious” no win, no fee arrangements are not regulated by the Government.

However, some people want that to change. The Justice Secretary Jack Straw said: “Unregulated contingency fee arrangements have been stretched to breaking point by some no win no fee lawyers who have exploited vulnerable clients by taking huge slices out of their damages, failed to provide them with proper information, and imposed unfair terms and conditions that have locked them into unreasonable deals.

“The time has come for these arrangements to be subject to proper regulation to protect the interests of consumers, and that is what the government will legislate to do.”

A paper designed to gather the views of interested parties will soon be published by the Ministry of Justice.

This includes the right to redundancy payments, which is what brought the case to light.

In the case, two directors/shareholders of different companies received salaries and paid tax and national insurance contributions as employees. They also had an oral contract of employment.

Both companies were later declared insolvent. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, the two directors were judged by an employment tribunal to have no rights to redundancy payments.

An Employment Appeal Tribunal rejected the original decision and deemed that the two could indeed be classed as employees.

This was then accepted by the judges at the appeal court.