Mark Ellis Blog

For the last 4 years, employers have been plagued by the ridiculous statutory disciplinary and grievance procedures and some poor employers have lost claims brought against them, simply on the basis that the statutory procedures for dealing with disciplinary matters was not followed to the exact letter.
The statutory procedures have been little more than an employee’s charter to make more money from employers. Great news for lawyers – very bad news for employers!

 
It is therefore no surprise that the procedures have been criticised by just about all those (employers) that have had the misfortune of having to follow them! This blog has also been used as a platform to campaign against them!

 
After much such campaigning, there was a huge sigh of relief when the Government decided to abolish the statutory procedures – and we have been keenly awaiting details in the Employment Bill, which is expected to come into force next April. 

 
However, don’t open the champagne just yet as ACAS’ recently published revised code of practice seems to suggest that the new procedure will be much the same!

 
It is expected that once the Employment Bill comes into force, the statutory procedures will be replaced by the ACAS Code and whilst, at first glance, the Code appears to be much shorter than the statutory procedures, ultimately, the three step process remains. Hmm!

 
Nevertheless, the main difference, which will hopefully prevent employers from falling foul of the procedures, is that it will not be legally binding.  In practice this means that failure to follow the procedure to the letter will not result in a finding of automatically unfair dismissal. In addition the automatic increase in compensation will disappear along with the statutory procedures.  That is not to say that the Employment Tribunal will not grant an increase in compensation if it thinks that it is appropriate to do so, but any such increase will be limited to 25% and will only be awarded where the Tribunal considers it ‘just and equitable’.

 
In summary, all those employers that have been awaiting the changes do not have much longer to wait.  That said, don’t throw out the procedures because it seems that a large part of them will remain in place – just dressed up in different clothes. I know what yuo are thinking….Thank Goodness for Ellis Whittam!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Employment Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.