The new financial year starting on 6 April 2022 brings with it, as ever, plenty of new figures and limits to be aware of from an employment law perspective.

One of the headline increases is that the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal is rising from £89,493 to £93,878; an increase of 4.89% (which is actually below the CPI rate of inflation in the year to February 2022, which came in at a whopping 6.2% and is expected to rise further this Spring). Nevertheless, this is the largest annual increase in the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal in many years, and employers need to take note.

Of course, such a statutory limit only applies to those claimants whose annual salary exceeds this limit, otherwise, their annual salary itself is their limit for a compensatory award.

It is also worth noting that such a statutory limit does not apply for certain automatically unfair dismissals, such as those for health and safety related concerns or whistleblowing.

Other key figures to be aware of include, the increase in the maximum week's pay for calculating statutory redundancy and unfair dismissal basic award, which is rising from £544 to £571, and consequently an increase in the ever-topical award for breaching the flexible working regulations, which is capped at eight week's pay of the statutory limit, and thus rising from £4352 to £4568.

A full list of changes to statutory rates and compensation limits effective from 6 April 2022 can be found on this CIPD webpage.