Retail Motor Law

Employment Law In Focus…..

The statutory dispute resolution procedures  have been abolished on April 6 2009. They have been be replaced with a new voluntary ACAS code of Practice, but what will this mean for your company?

From 6 April 2009 the Employment Law Act 2008 which encompasses the handling of discipline, dismissal and grievance issues, has made the following changes to the law:

Out with the old…….. The existing procedures for dealing with discipline, dismissal and grievance issues (as set out in the Employment Act 2002) will be repealed.  But his won’t mean that you can throw away your company Disciplinary procedures. Essentially it means that the pre-2004 position on unfair dismissal will return.

 And in with the New

The new code is designed to provide more flexible rules to help you deal with disciplinary, dismissal and grievance.  However as the law surrounding dismissals will revert back October 2004,it will be very similar to the current procedure.

The main stages of the new procedure are

·         Establish the facts of the matter as soon as possible

·         Inform the  employee in writing of the issue and invite them as appropriate to a  disciplinary hearing

·         Hold the hearing

 ·         Allow employee to be accompanied by a friend OR  Union  representative ( if appropriate)

·         Decide appropriate disciplinary sanction

 ·          Inform  employee of right of appeal

Beware – there is no legal requirement to follow the new code but a Tribunal will be able to take into consideration whether an employee or employer has failed to reasonably follow the code and it will have the discretion to adjust awards by up to 25%In addition the new code acknowledges that small business may not be able to follow all aspects due to limited resources (e.g. may they may not be an alternative person to hear appeals).

The new ACAS Code of Practice for Discipline and Grievance can be found at http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2174

Approaching the Changeover:

You may be wondering how to deal with disputes that straddle both dates. This will be decided using what has been termed as a ‘trigger date’

If the ‘trigger date’ is on or after 6 April 2009 then old regime applies, if the ‘triggar date’ is after the 5April  then new regime applies.

 The ‘trigger date’ is the date the employer started action against employee – e.g.  for a disciplinary matter – it will be the date the employee receives letter or notification  explaining  that action is being considered..

For a grievance issue – the ‘trigger date’ is the date the employee complains.