Trade Union Act 2016: draft regulations published defining "important public services"

The Trade Union Act 2016 (TUA 2016) has amended several aspects of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 (TULRCA), although the majority of the amendments are not yet in force. (See Practice note, Trade Union Act 2016 and related consultations and Practical Law Employment: Legislation tracker: Trade Union Act 2016.)

One of the changes is that, in ballots of workers engaged in "important public services", at least 40% of those entitled to vote must have voted in favour of the action (section 3, TUA 2016). Section 3 of the TUA 2016 provides that important public services will be given meaning in regulations but limits the categories of services that can fall within the definition to:

In January 2016, following consultation, the government published a list of the services within the above categories that will be considered important public services, with the exception of nuclear decommissioning (see Legal update, Government response to consultation on public service strike ballot thresholds).

The government has now published five sets of draft regulations, which appear to be consistent with the list of services published in January 2016:

There are presently no draft regulations for the nuclear decommissioning sector.

The draft regulations are stated to come into force with effect from 1 March 2017 or, if later, 21 days after the date on which the regulations are made. However, section 3 of the TUA 2016 (see Background) has not yet been brought into force save for the purposes of making the above regulations. We assume that it will be brought into force in line with the timetable provided for in the draft regulations.