BVA soon to tighten eligibility rules for legal services
Eligibility to access the British Veterinary Association (BVA) wider legal services will soon be tightened to exclude pre-existing employment disputes and disputes that occur within the first three months of membership.
While existing members have access to the full range of BVA legal services including mediation, legal representation (employees) and employment law/HR service (employers) the new rules will apply to new and re-joining BVA members from 1 November 2013. This means that in their first three months of membership joiners have access to the BVA legal advice line only, with full access to all legal services unlocked for new employment issues three months into their membership.
BVA President Peter Jones said: “Feedback from members has been that this benefit should not be accessible immediately on joining the BVA. We are keen to ensure that our long standing members are not disadvantaged by those joining the BVA for a limited period, solely to use these services.
“Our legal services are there to support members through tough times and whilst we hope they never have to need them, the best way of protecting themselves is to retain BVA membership throughout their veterinary career.
“With no similar service on the market when we launched the extended legal services in 2010 we felt we needed to be more open and support all members including those with pre-existing employment disputes. Now that the services have been running for a few years and the profession knows about them we feel it is appropriate to limit them to those who consistently support us with their membership, a kind of loyalty reward.
“We are informing all of our existing members of the change and non-members might just want to use this chance to join us before the implementation date.”
Further information about all of the BVA’s legal services is available at www.bva.co.uk/legal.
