Employment Rights Act 1996 s.3;
Employment Relations Act 1999 ss.10-15
Employment Act 2002 s.32 and sch 2
Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004 SI 2004/752
ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures, CoP 1

For notes on why Parliament set up dismissal/disciplinary procedures and grievance procedures as separate procedures and the likelihood that they will be scrapped and replaced with a simpler less prescriptive system in 2008/2009 go to Disciplinary procedures/background and/or Bills before Parliament/Employment Bill .

go to next updated reference in this note.

Under regulations introduced with effect from 1st October 2004 all employers, regardless of size, are obliged to operate minimum statutory grievance procedures and the small employer exemption from the need to provide employees with details is abolished (ERA 1996 s.3(3) is repealed - see Emp'tAct 2002 s.36, with s.54 and sch 8 and notes at Statement of particulars of employment/2004 changes ).

As a general rule employees must go through the minimum statutory grievance procedures as a pre-condition of being allowed to bring a claim in an employment tribunal. An important exception is a normal unfair dismissal claim. This is because the general idea of the 2004 rules is to encourage employers and employees to settle differences "out of court" and if that is practical it will have been achieved without the need for the employee to initiate a grievance procedure as employers are required to go through a "disciplinary/dismissal procedure" before dismissing an employee (failing which a dismissal will generally be automatically unfair - see notes at Unfair dismissal/automatically unfair dismissals/disciplinary procedures not followed ).

In most cases the grievance procedure is straightforward, a "step 1 statement of grievance" (commonly called a "stage 1 grievance letter") from the employee to the employer followed by meetings as appropriate, one of which may be an appeal meeting (in appropriate cases the employer must notify the employee that he has a right to appeal if he is dissatisfied with the conclusion). It is enough that an employee has written some form of note or letter to the employer which specifies the grievance - no formality is needed for this to count as a "stage 1 grievance letter" (see Shergold v Fieldway Medical Centre EAT 2005 reported at [2006] IRLR 76 and Galaxy Showers Ltd v Wilson EAT 2005 reported at [2006] IRLR 83).

As from 1st October 2004, employees can suffer a severe penalty if they fail to use this statutory grievance procedure process. From that date, unless he has first used the (statutory) minimum grievance procedure in an attempt to agree an "out-of-court" settlement, an employee (or an ex-employee) is disqualified from bringing most claims in an employment tribunal (Emp'tAct 2002 s.32). It should be noted that special rules extending time limits for tribunal applications in appropriate cases mitigate the apparent harshness of this penalty (see notes at Dispute Resolution/time-limits ).

As noted above, a fairly relaxed approach is taken to what amounts to a "stage 1 grievance letter" and although there were early examples of tribunals being quite rigid that is no longer the case (there was an early example of a case being dismissed in the Equal Opportunities Review, May 2005 at page 28 - Noskiw v Royal Mail Group plc; Nottingham ET no 2603639/04 on 7th March 2005). Other examples include Shergold v Fieldway Medical Centre EAT 2005 reported at [2006] IRLR 76, Lipscombe v Forestry Commission CA 2007 on 9th May 2007 in a case in which the EAT had suggested that by failing to recognise that a resignation letter amounted to a grievance the Forestry Commission had failed to see the wood for the trees and DMC Business Machines Plc v Plummer, EAT on 21st December 2006).

go to next updated reference in this note.

From 1st October 2004 time limits for making applications to an employment tribunal are extended where a grievance procedure has been initiated by an employee. This is to allow time for proper discussion between employer and employee for investigating and resolving the grievance (see Time-limits/2004 dispute resolution rules ).

The statutory grievance procedure is not relevant when an employee is dismissed (leaving aside constructive dismissal ). In dismissal cases the employer is obliged to operate the statutory disciplinary/dismissal procedure and for the employee to run a grievance procedure as well would clearly be wasteful and might give rise to all sorts of technical arguments. Therefore Employment Act 2002 (Dispute Resolution) Regulations 2004 SI 2004/752 reg 6(5) provides that grievance procedures do not apply in dismissal cases. The statutory grievance procedure and the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedures are mutually exclusive (confirmed by the EAT in 2006 - see notes at Department for Constitutional Affairs v Jones CA 2007 on 18th July 2007).

If an employee is dismissed and the statutory dismissal/disciplinary procedure has not been followed his dismissal will be automatically unfair (see Unfair dismissal/automatically unfair dismissals/disciplinary procedures not followed ).

The requirement to use the grievance procedures applies only to employees as defined. However the statutory right to be accompanied at a grievance hearing by a workplace colleague or trade union representative applies to every worker whether or not within the definition of employee, in the same way as at disciplinary proceedings - see notes at Disciplinary procedures/Right to be accompanied

ACAS has issued useful ACAS guidance to Disciplinary and Grievance procedures, October 2004 and there is full May 2004 DTI guidance to the disciplinary and grievance procedure rules on the web. There is an official website which includes sample letters, Procedures for discipline and grievances: a guide for employees from the DBERR and also a revised 2004 version of the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures came into effect on 4th September 2004 (see notes at ACAS/codes of practice ).