The Health and Social Care Information Centre (Transfer of Staff, Property and Liabilities) Order 2008

Citation, commencement, application and interpretation

1.—(1) This Order may be cited as the Health and Social Care Information Centre (Transfer of Staff, Property and Liabilities) Order 2008 and shall come into force on 1^st April 2008.

(2) This Order applies in relation to England.

(3) In this Order—

“desktop” means a personal computer, other than a laptop, including its central processing unit, screen, keyboard and mouse;

“the Information Centre” means the Health and Social Care Information Centre(1);

“Smedley Hydro” means the premises at Smedley Hydro, Trafalgar Road, Southport, Merseyside PR8 2HH;

“the transfer date” means 1^st April 2008.

Transfer of staff

2.—(1) This article applies in relation to any person who—

(a) immediately before the transfer date was an employee of the Secretary of State; and

(b) immediately before 31^st March 2008 had been an employee of the Office for National Statistics working wholly or mainly in the NHS Central Register section of the Office for National Statistics at Smedley Hydro and who was notified in writing on or before 25^th February 2008 that that person was to be transferred to the Information Centre.

(2) Any person to whom this article applies shall, on the transfer date, be transferred to the employment of the Information Centre.

(3) The contract of employment of an employee transferred under paragraph (2)—

(a) is not terminated by the transfer; and

(b) shall have effect on and after the transfer date as if originally made between that employee and the Information Centre.

(4) Without prejudice to paragraph (3)—

(a) all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of the Secretary of State under, or in connection with, a contract to which that paragraph applies shall, by virtue of this article, be transferred to the Information Centre on the transfer date; and

(b) anything done before that date by, or in relation to, the Secretary of State or the Office for National Statistics in respect of that contract or that employee, shall be deemed on and after the transfer date to have been done by, or in relation to, the Information Centre.

(5) Paragraphs (2) to (4) are without prejudice to any right of any employee to terminate that employee’s contract of employment if a substantial and detrimental change is made to that employee’s working conditions, but no such right shall arise by reason only of the change in employer effected by this article.

(6) Paragraphs (2) to (4) do not transfer an employee’s contract of employment, or the rights, powers, duties and liabilities under or in connection with it, if that employee has objected to the transfer to the Information Centre and had informed the Secretary of State of that objection by or on 31^st March 2008.

(7) Where an employee has objected as mentioned in paragraph (6), that employee’s contract of employment with the Secretary of State shall be terminated immediately before the transfer date, but the employee shall not be treated, for any purpose, as having been dismissed by the Secretary of State.

Enforceability of rights and transfer of property

3.—(1) The property of the Secretary of State set out in the Schedule shall on the transfer date be transferred to the Information Centre.

(2) Any right or liability relating to the property listed in the Schedule that was—

(a) immediately before the transfer date, enforceable by or against the Secretary of State; and

(b) immediately prior to the 31^st March 2008, enforceable by or against the Office for National Statistics,

shall on and after the transfer date be enforceable by or against the Information Centre.

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Health.

Ben Bradshaw

Minister of State,

Department of Health

27th February 2008