Join us for the AGM and networking Concept and innovation awards open for entry

The Baby Products Association has announced that its 2023 Concept & Innovation Awards are now open and anyone with an exciting new baby product invention is invited to submit an entry.

Robert Anslow of the Association explains: “As a trade association we are keen to promote excellence and innovation in the nursery industry and these annual awards encourage this. Over the years we have been presented with some extremely interesting and innovative ideas. Some of these turn out to be too ambitious in terms of manufacturing costs and realistic retail prices and there are always concerns about how some of the designs will be able to comply with rigorous testing and safety standards.

“The Baby Products Association judges are a team of experts with many years combined experience in all aspects of baby products from design and manufacture, to safety and compliance to retail and marketing. They have been able to advise and guide entrepreneurs and help to support them in their journey to market.”

The Concept & Innovation Awards finalists will be invited to attend Harrogate International Nursery Fair from 15th to 17th October 2023 where the winner will be announced.

Entries are invited from anyone with an interesting and unique baby product idea – this could be from companies already working in the sector, mumpreneurs (or dadpreneurs!), to college and university students – the only criteria is that the product must not be launched into the market place prior to the trade show in October.

More information and entry forms are available to download from the website at www.b-p-a.org – the deadline to submit entries is 12 noon on 18th August 2023.

In addition, Asha Bhalsod from Etopia Consultancy, which specialises in working with Amazon, will answer questions about how to get the best from trading on this platform. This can be from how to build a shoppable brand, to training staff in Amazon account management.

We hope that as many members as possible will turn up and support the Baby Products Association. We will shortly be issuing invitations to nominate yourself or someone within your organisation to join the Association’s Technical Committee - so if you or any of your team would enjoy participating and helping to shape the future of product creation and design, please let us know. Please keep an eye out for the invitations nearer the time.

Are employees entitled to the additional bank holiday for the King’s coronation?

The government announced that 8th May 2023 will be designated as a bank holiday to mark King Charles’ Coronation. But do employees have the right to take this additional bank holiday as paid leave?

The ability of an employee to take this additional bank holiday will be determined by the specific language of their employment contract.

If the contract of employment states that the annual holiday entitlement will be a certain number of days “plus public or bank holidays,” they will be contractually entitled to take the additional holiday.

Where the contract stipulates a set number of bank holidays or specifically names the bank holidays, the employee will not be entitled to the additional day off.

Similarly, where the contract simply refers to 20 days plus “the usual bank holidays” or “commonly observed bank holidays”, it can be argued that as this is not a commonly observed bank holiday, employees are not entitled to it.

In these circumstances, the employee can still take the day off as paid leave out of their outstanding statutory entitlement for that holiday year (usually 20 days per annum). Employers are however free to grant the additional day off at their absolute discretion. If you do so, it is important to make sure you highlight that it is a one-off benefit and not an entitlement. Employers have a duty to act consistently and it is therefore important to consider how employers treated The Queens Jubilee Platinum bank holiday. Was this day granted as a holiday? Were employees allowed a day off on the day of the Queens funeral?

With part-time employees, the construction of the contract of employment will determine their entitlement.

Association members with any HR queries like this can contact the free Quest helpline included with their membership.