Sarah Cooper

As of 1 October, employees now have six months to bring a tribunal claim against you instead of three. This means that every dismissal, disciplinary and grievance outcome from that date carries twice the risk window. And, when you factor in Acas early conciliation, a claim might not land on your desk for nine months or more after the original incident.

October brings one of the busiest stretches of change we've seen all year, so grab a cup of tea and settle in, because there's a lot to get through.

Right now, someone in your business is probably pasting client data into ChatGPT. If that data includes anything personal or commercially sensitive, you could be looking at a UK GDPR breach. The ICO doesn't care that you didn't know it was happening. Most employees are already using AI tools regularly. ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Grammarly, AI coding assistants. They're using them because they're useful and because nobody has told them not to. Or told them how.