Abolition of the hated statutory dismissal procedures

Hello and welcome to this week’s employment law news from Reculver Solicitors.

All Change for 2009. The Statutory Dismissal Procedures Get the Chop
Since their introduction in 2004, the Statutory Dismissal Procedures have been detested by many employment practitioners, and merely loathed by others. However they are due to be swept away and replaced in April 2009. Here are some of the key features:

· Employees will no longer be required to issue grievances (for claims other than dismissal) and wait 28 days before issuing a Tribunal claim.
· The vexed question of what is or is not a grievance will therefore no longer be so important
· Employers will no longer be obliged to hear grievances from ex employees.
· Where a fixed term contract is coming to an end by reason of redundancy, there will no longer be the need to through the statutory dismissal procedures (please note though that employees on fixed term contracts with over one years service may still be able to claim unfair dismissal when dismissed at the expiry of the fixed term so caution does still need to be exercised)
· The complex provisions in which employees have six months to bring a claim if they have raised a grievance will go. The old, and simpler time limit of 3 months (in the majority of claims) will come back
· Dismissals will not be ‘automatically’ unfair simply due to the failure to follow the statutory dismissal procedure. However, a word of caution; employers still have to follow a fair procedure when dismissing, and careful attention needs to given to the revised ACAS Code (below). If any employer fails to comply with a fair procedure, the dismissal will be unfair (though an adjustment may be made to the award) even if the procedural failure made no difference to the outcome.
· If either the employer or the employee fails to follow the ACAS code, and the Tribunal considers it just and equitable, an award may be increased / decreased by up to 25% (depending on who is at fault)

We will give you more news on these developments nearer their introduction in April 2009.

For the ACAS Code please see: http://www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=961&p=0 . With thanks to the Employment Lawyers Association Briefing and their recent article.