Archive for the ‘ACAS Code of Practice 1’ Category
By Sarah - Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
ACAS have now published their annual report for 2008/2009. Whilst it is largely about the work of ACAS there are some interesting statistics concerning the types of cases they have conciliated over and the types of calls that they are getting into the helpline.
The report shows that in 2008/2009 they conciliated over 236,116 claims up from 227,782 in the previous year. The majority related to unfair dismissal at 23% with equal pay coming a close second at 20%. These figures does not apparently include the NHS equal pay claims, so it seems higher than I would have expected. 3rd and 4th place go to Wages Act claims and Breach of contract respectively. Rather interestingly ACAS conciliated in 49,675 cases where no claim had yet been presented to the Tribunal.
With regards to the helpline the number of calls actually dropped this year to 726,306. It will come as no shock that 28% of the calls were about redundancies, lay-offs and business transfers. In second place came calls about discipline, dismissal and grievances at 27% followed by contracts at 17% and holidays and working time at 12%.
Posted in ACAS Code of Practice 1 | 1 comment »
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By Liam - Wednesday, May 13th, 2009
This case at the EAT is further confirmation that employees must say what they mean when they raise a grievance. If they mean to complain of disability discrimination, they must say so. An employee who raises a grievance about race and sex victimisation can not rely on that grievance to allow her to present a complaint of disability discrimination.
Although the statutory procedures have been repealed, the reasoning here is still likely to be applicable to the issue of uplifts/reductions under the ACAS code of practice because even though Tribunals will not be jurisdictionally barred from considering complaints where a grievance has not been raised, Tribunals will still need to consider the issue of whether a grievance was raised about the claim being presented to decide whether an uplift or reduction is warranted.
Posted in ACAS Code of Practice 1, Categories, Statutory Procedures | No comments »
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By Liam - Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
The Statutory Grievance Procedure is no more (at least in respect of matters arising solely on or after 6 April 2009). Under the old SGP, if an employee agreed in writing and their employment had ended, their grievance could be dealt with by way of a written response from the employer with no right of appeal.
Under the new ACAS code of practice, dealing with a grievance without a meeting breaches the Code of Practice. As such an employer who does not hold a meeting to deal with a grievance is at risk of an uplift of up to 25% if a Tribunal finds that the failure to follow the code was unreasonable.
This could prove a trap for employers who have become used to not holding a grievance meeting after employees leave and where the employee is content to have the matter dealt with by correspondence. It also removes a tactical opportunity in that employers can no longer choose whether to have a grievance meeting or not (there are tactical advantages and disadvantages to holding such a meeting).
Posted in ACAS Code of Practice 1 | 3 comments »
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