Autumn 2009 Newsletter Contents Tin Hats Required Trust In Money Beat The Hike Expenses A - Z On The Job Training Pay In Lieu Pension Pot Opportunity Knocks ISAy ISAy ISAy Fair Exchange? Scrappage The Value Of IR35 Loss And Profit End Of The Holidays Da Vinci Or PAYE? Last Orders Foreign Peril Quadruple Entry It's A Date All Change Good Health! O Lucky Man! Be Prepared An Inspector Calls SA Or Not SA? Now You're Asking I Only Work Here You Want It When? Dirty Laundry? No Smoke Without Fire Corporate Manslaughter

Now You're Asking An individual was recruited as a council's managing director after filling in a questionnaire in which she said that she enjoyed good health and suffered from no physical or mental impairment that would affect her ability to carry out her duties. Later she suffered a nervous breakdown and was given an ill-health retirement pension. Subsequently the council discovered that she had had three previous episodes of depression and took the unusual step of suing her for the return of her sick pay - they argued that the health questionnaire had been completed fraudulently. The High Court rejected this. The questions were not so precise that it could be certain that the answers given were fraudulent or negligent. The employee had genuinely believed them when she gave them. It's a reminder that such questionnaires have to be designed with extreme care: there are many things that probably cannot be asked at all because of the risk of discrimination, but those questions that can be asked must be phrased exactly to make sure that the answers can be relied on.