Employment Law Brief: 24 April 2008

The statutory procedures continue to vex us, and it must be hoped that when their eventual demise comes they will (unlike the forms of action) not continue to rule us from their graves. We must still watch out for further responses from the government to the Gibbons Report, and ACAS is due to consult before too long on a revised version of its Code of Practice No 1, which is to be an essential element in whatever replaces the procedures. In the meantime the case law continues to troop along gaily, with decisions in the last month giving further guidance on what level of information needs to be in a grievance document to satisfy that procedure (see Ward v University of Essex [2008] UKEAT/391/07, [2008] All ER (D) 123 (Mar)) and once again resolutely declining to give any overreaching guidance on how tribunals should operate the “uplift” on compensation in a case of failure by the employer to comply with the dismissal procedure (see Butler v G R Carr (Essex) Ltd [2008] UKEAT/128/07, [2008] All ER (D)