Disciplinary and grievance procedures in force today

"Nobody wants to go through tribunal proceedings unless they have to, and yet research has shown that nearly two thirds of applications come from employees who have not discussed the problem with their employers first,” said Employment Relations Minister Gerry Sutcliffe earlier today.

"Many good employers already have and use grievance and disciplinary procedures. But there are some who either don't use existing procedures, or don't have any in place. These new regulations provide a simple, easy to follow basic procedure which will benefit employees, employers, and the tax payer," he added.

The Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004 make it mandatory for every UK employer to have in place statutory disciplinary and grievance procedures, and to use them correctly when workplace disputes arise.

They set out a basic three-step statutory procedure that should be followed before a case can be heard by an employment tribunal, encouraging people to talk through disputes when and where they occur, using employment tribunals as a back up rather than a first port of call.

This will also cut the number of cases going through the employment tribunal system unnecessarily, saving all parties stress, time and money, says the Government.

Under the new rules, before a matter can be taken to an employment tribunal:

• the issue must be set out in writing;
• a meeting must be held between the parties to discuss the matter; and,
• an appeal meeting must be held if the matter has still not been resolved.

The employee also has a statutory right to be accompanied to workplace dispute/disciplinary meetings by a trade union official or work colleague. Clarifications to the role of a companion in these meetings are laid out in the Employment Relations Act 2004 and come into effect today as well.

Failure by either party to follow the three-step procedure will mean they could incur financial penalties if the dispute goes to an employment tribunal. In a dismissal case where the employer has failed to follow the procedure, the dismissal will be found automatically unfair.

In addition to the dispute resolution regulations, new procedures for handling employment tribunal claims come into effect today. The rules have been rewritten in plain English to aid user-friendliness, and the substantive changes will improve the system by:

• requiring more information to be provided by claimants and respondents up-front;
• sifting out at the outset, by way of new "pre-acceptance" procedures, claims and responses that the tribunals are not empowered to deal with;
• introducing a fixed conciliation period with Acas – 13 weeks for most cases, 7 weeks for simple ones - to promote early settlement where possible.

The new, plain English claim and response forms which come into use today take into account the new dispute resolution regulations and new procedures; and from next April, the use of these forms will become mandatory.