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 employment start date and the period of continuous employment;




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




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




• holiday entitlement and holiday pay, including public holidays, and rights to accrued holiday pay on termination;




• rules about sickness or injury absence and sick pay;




• pensions and pension schemes;




• notice;




• job title or a brief description of duties;




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



• 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 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. 




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




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.




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 (Lange v Georg Schunemann GmbH [2001] IRLR 244).




Regarding notice requirements, it is enough for the written 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. 




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 contract terms change, the employer must give the employee a revised written statement of the change within one month of the change (section 4, ERA 96).
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 bring a claim in the employment tribunal at any time while they are working for the employer, or within three months of the ending of the employment. 


As with all claims except for interim relief (see Chapter 5), no claim can be brought without first submitting a completed Acas Early Conciliation (EC) Notification Form, available from the Acas website. This must be done within the three-month time period for making the claim. For information on Acas EC see Chapter 14.




Compensation of between two to four weeks’ pay (capped at £508 per week (2018-19)) can be awarded for failure to provide a written statement within two months of the employment start date, but only if another statutory employment claim 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. 




The statutory statement of employment particulars is not the employment contract, but it is good evidence of the contract terms. 


Just because something is not included on the statutory statement of particulars, this does not mean it cannot be a contract term. For example, in Allen v TRW Systems [2013] UKEAT/2013/0083/12, the claimants had a contractual right to enhanced redundancy pay even though the statement contained no reference to it (see pages 405-406, Chapter 11).





In December 2017, responding to concerns over the growth of “non-standard”, zero and short hours contracts across Europe, the European Commission announced that the Written Statement Directive, on which the statement of employment particulars is based, will be replaced by a new EU directive on transparent and predictable working conditions in the EU. The change is aimed at strengthening the rights of all workers, especially those with casual and short-term working arrangements. 


The proposed new Directive is part of the European Commission’s European Pillar of Social Rights, announced by the European Parliament, Council and Commission in November 2017. The TUC is campaigning for a legislative guarantee that the employment rights of UK workers will at least match any new improvements introduced by the EU, to prevent a race to the bottom. The extent to which UK workers benefit from the new Directive (if at all) will depend on the terms of the UK’s departure from the EU and any trade deal (see Chapter 1).



In its response to the Taylor review (see Chapter 2), the government has promised to extend the right to written particulars to all workers, including agency workers. There will be consultation on how to achieve this and what information to include.