The Employment Bill has been published by the Government and has now gone through the House of Lords.

For employers out there, what this means is the abolition of the statutory dismissal and grievance procedures which many employers feel have restricted their activity for the last few years.

It does not mean for employers that the cuffs are off. What the Government has effectively done is take us back to a position that we were in at the early part of this decade whereby a dismissal must be made in a way that is “fair” which for most of us will mean following the ACAS Code of Practice. Tribunals will have the discretion to increase payments to employees by up to 25% if an employer unreasonably fails to comply with the Code of Practice.

What will be seen as a good move however is that employers will no longer need to follow the three step dismissal procedure which appears to have tripped up so many employers on a technicality in the past.

Before you all rush out to rip up your current disciplinary procedures, the new bill will not become law until the Secretary of State decides it will and it is expected that this will happen sometime in the next year.