Home , Child Trust Fund , Sports Clubs , Time Out , News Archive , Freedom Of Information , NCODP Meeting , Did you know , Grants/Charities , Consumer , Youth News , Education , Health , Getting around , Immigration , Relationships , Housing , Employment , Why Vote , Noticeboard , Links Page , GM Foods , How Sorted R U? , R U Sorted? Quiz , Problem Page , Police , Benefits ,
For sometime the Government has been concerned about the number of cases going to Employment Tribunals (ET) and wants to try and resolve more cases in the work place before they go to the ET. To make sure this happens they are going to be changing the regulations, about accessing the ET, on the 1st October.
At the present moment if you have an issue with your employer around unfair dismissal, deductions from wages, discrimination or a range of other mistreatments you are able to access the employment tribunals by simply filling in the ET1 form to start the process. As of October this will all be changing.
From that date there will be statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedures that ALL employers no matter how small must follow, even if someone is retiring. This will normally be a three-stage process stating with a warning letter saying that dismissal is possible then a hearing followed by an appeal. In certain circumstances there will be a two-stage process e.g. gross misconduct
These procedures will be laid out in new guidance from ACAS and if either side fail to follow them then the ET is expect to either reduce the amount of compensation you will get if the failure was yours or increase your award if the failure was the companies by a minimum of 10% and a maximum of 50%. This can happen even in circumstances where you decide not to go to the appeal stage because you think it is pointless.
As well as there being a formal dismissal and disciplinary procedure there will also be a statutory grievance procedure that must be followed. If the employee thinks that the employer has acted in such a way as to lead to a case before an ET, e.g. unauthorised deduction from wages, discrimination on the grounds of sex, race and disability but not religion or sexual orientation, then they must go to grievance before they can go to tribunal. Again the size of the employer does not matter so it could be that the firm only has just one employee or a multinational with thousands.
As the government are making these changes there will also be a change in the time limits for bringing the case to the ET. At the present moment this time limit is 3 months or 90 days but in certain circumstances this will increase to six months. We can’t give any general advice on this as each will run to its own timetable. There are certain cases where the grievance procedure will not apply and here the time limit for going to an ET remains at three months.
If you are called to a disciplinary or grievance meeting then you will have the right to be accompanied either by another member of staff or by an accredited trade union official. You won’t be able to take your parents, a friend or a lawyer to these meetings unless the company agree to it.
For more information about these changes and how they may affect you contact us on info@askcab.co.uk
Disclaimer, Target Audience, Jurisdiction Last updated & checked: 24/03/2006