From April 2009, employment law regarding disciplinary and grievance procedures is changing. Whilst many employers dread further changes, this change in employment law is meant to be good news: the restrictive statutory procedure is to be dropped and replaced by a new ACAS Code of Practice.
The Code is less proscriptive and should, in theory, therefore be beneficial for employers. The Code sets out general principles and a failure to follow it will not result in an automatically unfair dismissal. The Tribunal will take into account whether the behaviour of the employer and the employee has complied with the Code of Conduct when making any award. The award can be adjusted up or down by 25%, rather than the 50% adjustment allowed under the statutory procedure.
The Code requires both employer and employee to abide by a standard of fairness and reasonable behaviour. Issues must be dealt with promptly and consistently. In relation to disciplinary matters the Code of Practice still expects a proper investigation, informing the employee in writing of the issues and holding a meeting with them, followed by an appeal of the decision, if the employee wants one.
Unlike the statutory procedure, the code of Practice does not apply to redundancy scenarios, or the expiry of fixed term contracts. Other changes include:
- No extension of time to bring a tribunal claim whilst a grievance or disciplinary procedure is being heard or appealed.
- The employer does not appear to be under an absolute duty to inform the employee of their right to appeal (although we would recommend you do)
- The employee is required to set out their grounds of appeal in writing.
The statutory procedure gave rise to a lot of case law and it is likely there will be some case law on the new code of Practice as well. In the meantime, the good news is that if you already have an employment handbook covering the statutory procedure, you are unlikely to need to change it. For more new developments - watch this space.