Written statement of employment particulars

Under sections 1 and 2 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 96), employees have the right to a written statement of particulars of their employment. This must be provided no later than eight weeks after the employment begins, and must include:

• the names of the employer and the employee;

• the date the employment began and the period of continuous employment;

• the scale and rate of remuneration, pay intervals and the method of calculating pay;

• terms relating to hours of work and any terms as to normal working hours;

• holiday entitlement and holiday pay, including public holidays, and any entitlement to accrued holiday pay on termination of the employment;

• rules about sickness or injury absence and sick pay;

• pensions and pension schemes;

• length of notice the employee is obliged to give and entitled to receive;

• job title or a brief description of duties;

• whether the employment is permanent or if it is fixed-term, the date when it is expected to end;

• place of work, or if the employee is required or permitted to work at various places, confirmation of this and the employer’s address;

• details of the employer’s disciplinary and grievance procedures (or information about where to find them) (See Chapter 10);

• any collective agreements affecting the employment contract;

• certain further particulars where the employment is outside the UK for more than a month each year.

Information about sickness absence procedures, sick pay and pensions can be included in another document (such as a handbook) that the employee has reasonable opportunity to read at work.

Overtime is not mentioned in the above list but in Lange v Georg Schunemann GmbH [2001] IRLR 244, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that if overtime is an essential element of the contractual relationship so that employees should normally do it if requested, it must be referred to in the written statement.

According to the ECJ in Kampelmann and others v Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe [1998] IRLR 333, simply providing details of the job title without any further description is not sufficient.

In relation to notice requirements, it is enough for the statement to refer the employee to the law on the matter (see Chapter 10: Termination with/without notice) or to a collective agreement, as long as there are opportunities to see it at work.

If there are no terms relating to any of the above items, this also must be stated.

The right to a written statement is not restricted to new employees. Existing employees can ask for a statement of their particulars if they do not have one.

If the employer does not provide a written statement, or fails to update the statement following a change to the contract terms, the employee can refer the matter to a tribunal at any time while they are working for the employer, or within three months of the ending of the employment.

There is a tribunal fee — an issue fee of £160 (2015) and a hearing fee of [£230 (2015) — for this kind of claim. The first mandatory step is to contact Acas under its Early Conciliation scheme. This must be done within the three-month time period for making the claim. For information on fees, remission, and Acas Early Conciliation see Chapter 13.

There is the possibility of compensation — between two to four weeks’ pay capped at £475 per week (2015-16) — from an employer that has failed to provide a written statement within two months of the employment start date. However, compensation is only available if another claim, such as a claim for unfair dismissal or discrimination, is successful (Advanced Collection Systems v Gultekin [2015] UKEAT 0377/14/0602). There is no freestanding right to compensation for failure to provide the statement.

An employment tribunal is allowed to decide what terms and conditions must have been agreed between the parties but is not allowed to rewrite those terms (Eagland v BT [1992] IRLR 323, Consistent Group Limited v Kalwak [2008] EWCA Civ 430).

In Norman & Another v National Audit Office UKEAT/0276/14/BA, the EAT upheld a ruling in a test case by PCS members rejecting attempts by the National Audit Office to make changes to contractual entitlements to sick pay and holiday without the consent of the union through collective bargaining. The EAT granted a declaration that the employees’ statutory statement of particulars of employment had not changed and that the employer’s attempted unilateral variation had been ineffective (section 12 ERA 96).

If contract terms change, the employer must give the employee a written statement of the change within one month of the change (section 4, ERA 96).

The statutory statement of employment particulars is not the contract of employment itself, but it is good evidence of the contract terms. Importantly, just because a benefit is not included in the statutory statement of particulars, this does not mean it is not a contract term: