Disciplinary procedure

What a disciplinary procedure is, and where the rules come from

The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures is the standard every disciplinary procedure in Great Britain is measured against. It was issued under section 199 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, and in its own words it “comes into effect by order of the Secretary of State on 11 March 2015 and replaces the Code issued in 2009.” Its foreword states its force: “A failure to follow the Code does not, in itself, make a person or organisation liable to proceedings. However, employment tribunals will take the Code into account when considering relevant cases.”

The money follows from section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Where a claim concerns a matter the Code covers and the employer's failure to comply with it was unreasonable, the tribunal “may, if it considers it just and equitable in all the circumstances to do so, increase any award it makes to the employee by no more than 25%”; an employee's unreasonable failure can reduce the award by the same maximum. The adjustment applies to claims by employees under the jurisdictions listed in Schedule A2 to the Act, unfair dismissal among them.

In practice every employer needs the procedure in writing. Section 3 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires the written statement of employment particulars to include a note “specifying any disciplinary rules applicable to the worker” and “specifying any procedure applicable to the taking of disciplinary decisions relating to the worker, or to a decision to dismiss the worker”, or to refer the worker to a reasonably accessible document that does. That is the statutory hook for an academy trust, a care provider and a charity alike. The governing body of a maintained school in England has a further duty: under regulation 7 of the School Staffing (England) Regulations 2009 it must establish procedures “for the regulation of the conduct and discipline of staff at the school”. Those regulations do not apply to academies, where the trust as employer relies on section 3 and the Code. The Code adds that rules and procedures “should be set down in writing, be specific and clear”, and that tribunals “will take the size and resources of an employer into account”.

The 1992 Act under which the Code is issued extends to England, Wales and Scotland and, apart from a few listed provisions, not to Northern Ireland (section 301), which has its own Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures from the Labour Relations Agency. This guide describes Great Britain.

A revised Code is in preparation but not in force. Acas consulted on a draft from 30 July to 23 September 2026, and its consultation page says “We're in the process of reviewing responses.” If Acas proceeds, the draft goes to the Secretary of State and, if approved, is laid before Parliament; like the 2015 Code, a new Code takes effect only when it is brought into effect by order, so until then the 2015 Code applies and its paragraph numbers are the ones used here. The same page is clear that informal resolution is not yet part of the statutory Code: “While its Foreword provides some brief guidance on resolving matters informally before using formal procedures, this does not form part of the statutory Code.”

Two dates change what is at stake when a procedure ends in dismissal. Under section 25 of the Employment Rights Act 2025, the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal protection falls from two years to six months, and the cap on the compensatory award is removed, where the effective date of termination is on or after 1 January 2027; the changes “do not have effect in any case where the effective date of termination falls before 1st January 2027” (S.I. 2026/559, regulations 3 and 4). And the time limit for most employment tribunal claims rose from three months to six on 1 October 2026 under section 152 of the same Act, but only where the “relevant date” is on or after that day: for unfair dismissal, the effective date of termination; for most other claims, broadly the date of the act or failure complained of. A case whose relevant date fell before 1 October 2026 keeps the three-month limit (S.I. 2026/954, regulation 4 and the Schedule).

What a disciplinary procedure covers, and what it does not

Paragraph 1 of the Code: “Disciplinary situations include misconduct and/ or poor performance.” An employer with a separate capability procedure may deal with performance there instead, but “the basic principles of fairness set out in this Code should still be followed, albeit that they may need to be adapted.” The Code does not apply to redundancy dismissals or to fixed-term contracts that are not renewed when they expire.

Within that scope, a procedure needs to deal with four things the Code names:

• Gross misconduct. “Disciplinary rules should give examples of acts which the employer regards as acts of gross misconduct. These may vary according to the nature of the organisation and what it does, but might include things such as theft or fraud, physical violence, gross negligence or serious insubordination” (paragraph 24). A school, a care service and a charity will each add its own: a serious breach of the staff behaviour policy on contact with pupils, a breach of the code of conduct for care workers that put a person at risk, or misuse of donated funds.
• Criminal charges. “If an employee is charged with, or convicted of a criminal offence this is not normally in itself reason for disciplinary action.” The question is the effect on “the employee's suitability to do the job and their relationship with their employer, work colleagues and customers” (paragraph 31).
• Trade union representatives. The normal procedure applies, but “it is advisable to discuss the matter at an early stage with an official employed by the union, after obtaining the employee's agreement” (paragraph 30).
• A grievance raised during a disciplinary. “The disciplinary process may be temporarily suspended in order to deal with the grievance”, and related cases may be dealt with together (paragraph 46); the grievance procedure guide covers that side.

The Code is written for employers and employees, and the statutory right to be accompanied belongs to workers. Neither the Code nor section 10 mentions volunteers; our reading is that a volunteer who is neither an employee nor a worker falls outside both, and charities usually deal with volunteer conduct under their volunteer arrangements rather than the staff disciplinary procedure (the volunteer code of conduct guide covers that). Whether a particular volunteer is in law a worker or an employee depends on the arrangement, so take advice where that is in doubt.

The disciplinary procedure steps, from investigation to appeal

Paragraph 4 of the Code sums up fairness in six elements: deal with issues promptly, act consistently, carry out any necessary investigations, tell the employee the basis of the problem and let them put their case “before any decisions are made”, allow them to be accompanied at any formal meeting, and allow an appeal against any formal decision. Paragraphs 5 to 29 turn that into steps.

1. Investigate first. “It is important to carry out necessary investigations of potential disciplinary matters without unreasonable delay to establish the facts of the case” (paragraph 5). That may mean an investigatory meeting with the employee, or only gathering the evidence. In misconduct cases, “where practicable, different people should carry out the investigation and disciplinary hearing” (paragraph 6), and an investigatory meeting “should not by itself result in any disciplinary action” (paragraph 7). There is “no statutory right for an employee to be accompanied at a formal investigatory meeting”, though an employer's own procedure may allow one.
2. Suspend only if necessary, and briefly. “In cases where a period of suspension with pay is considered necessary, this period should be as brief as possible, should be kept under review and it should be made clear that this suspension is not considered a disciplinary action” (paragraph 8). A school has a further test where the allegation concerns a child (section 05).
3. Tell the employee in writing. If there is a case to answer, “the employee should be notified of this in writing”, with “sufficient information about the alleged misconduct or poor performance and its possible consequences to enable the employee to prepare to answer the case at a disciplinary meeting”, and “It would normally be appropriate to provide copies of any written evidence, which may include any witness statements, with the notification” (paragraph 9). The letter also gives the time and venue and the right to be accompanied (paragraph 10). Where the evidence includes messages, WhatsApp messages in a disciplinary hearing covers how to gather and disclose them fairly.
4. Hold the disciplinary hearing. The meeting “should be held without unreasonable delay whilst allowing the employee reasonable time to prepare their case” (paragraph 11). At it, “the employer should explain the complaint against the employee and go through the evidence that has been gathered”, and the employee should have “a reasonable opportunity to ask questions, present evidence and call relevant witnesses” (paragraph 12). Where an employee “is persistently unable or unwilling to attend a disciplinary meeting without good cause the employer should make a decision on the evidence available” (paragraph 25).
5. Allow a companion. This is the step the law fixes with a must. Under section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999, where a worker is required or invited to a disciplinary hearing and reasonably asks to be accompanied, “the employer must permit the worker to be accompanied at the hearing by one companion” chosen by the worker: a fellow worker, an official employed by a trade union, or a union official whom the union has certified in writing as experienced or trained in the role. If the companion cannot come, the employer “must postpone the hearing” to a reasonable time the worker proposes, which must “fall before the end of the period of five working days beginning with the first working day after the day proposed by the employer”. The companion may put and sum up the worker's case, respond on their behalf and confer with them, but need not be allowed to answer questions for them. The Code says the right applies where the meeting could result in a formal warning or other disciplinary action, and at an appeal (paragraphs 13 to 17).
6. Decide, and confirm it in writing. “After the meeting decide whether or not disciplinary or any other action is justified and inform the employee accordingly in writing” (paragraph 18). Where misconduct or poor performance is confirmed, “it is usual to give the employee a written warning”, and a further act or failure to improve within a set period “would normally result in a final written warning” (paragraph 19); a sufficiently serious first offence may go straight to a final written warning (paragraph 20). A warning should set out the problem, the change required with a timescale, and the consequences of a further failure, and “The employee should be told how long the warning will remain current” (paragraph 21).
7. Dismiss only with authority, and after a fair process. “A decision to dismiss should only be taken by a manager who has the authority to do so”, and the employee should be told “as soon as possible of the reasons for the dismissal, the date on which the employment contract will end, the appropriate period of notice and their right of appeal” (paragraph 22). Gross misconduct may “call for dismissal without notice for a first offence. But a fair disciplinary process should always be followed, before dismissing for gross misconduct” (paragraph 23).
8. Hear any appeal impartially. The employee gives the grounds of appeal in writing, and appeals “should be heard without unreasonable delay” (paragraph 26). “The appeal should be dealt with impartially and, wherever possible, by a manager who has not previously been involved in the case” (paragraph 27); the right to be accompanied applies (paragraph 28); and the employee “should be informed in writing of the results of the appeal hearing as soon as possible” (paragraph 29).

Most of the Code is “should”, not “must”: investigating, using a different investigator, writing to the employee. It sets no fixed number of stages and no verbal warning; many procedures add an informal or oral stage of their own, in keeping with the foreword's note that “A quiet word is often all that is required to resolve an issue.” Nor does the Code set deadlines beyond promptness. A procedure that names its own periods for each step, and says who may extend them and why, is easier to follow and easier to defend than one that leaves the timing to the manager on the day.

What to record at each step

The Code's foreword says that “Employers would be well advised to keep a written record of any disciplinary or grievances cases they deal with.” The record is what lets the organisation show, months later, that it followed its procedure and the Code: who decided what, on which evidence, and when. A complete disciplinary file holds:

• the concern or allegation as it was first received, with the date and who raised it;
• who was appointed to investigate and what they were asked to establish, the notes of any investigatory meeting, witness statements, and the documents and messages gathered, with a note of how each was obtained;
• any suspension: the reason, the letter saying it is not disciplinary action, the date of each review and the date it ended;
• the invitation letter, with the allegation, its possible consequences, copies of the evidence, the time and venue and the right to be accompanied, and any request to postpone;
• notes of the hearing, including who attended, the companion, adjournments and what the employee said in answer;
• the outcome letter, with the findings and reasons, any sanction, how long a warning will remain current and the date it lapses, and the right of appeal; for a dismissal, the reasons, the end date and the notice;
• the appeal: the grounds, notes of the hearing and the outcome letter;
• any referral considered at the end, to the DBS, to the Secretary of State for teacher misconduct under sections 141D and 141E of the Education Act 2002, or to a professional regulator, with the reasons where the decision was not to refer.

Disciplinary records are personal data about the employee and often about colleagues, so they fall within a subject access request, and they need a retention period the organisation can justify in its retention schedule; how long to keep employee records covers the periods. Where an allegation concerned the safety of a child, the record and its retention follow Keeping children safe in education, set out in the allegations against staff guide.

Schools, care providers and charities: suspension, resignations and referrals

The Acas Code is the same for every employer. What differs is what surrounds it. In a school or college in England, an allegation that a member of staff may have harmed a child is first a safeguarding matter under Part four of Keeping children safe in education 2026, which has its own process, and these of its paragraphs, in Parts three and four, bear directly on the disciplinary:

• Suspension is not automatic. Paragraph 462: “Suspension should not be an automatic response when an allegation is reported. All options to avoid suspension should be considered prior to taking that step.” The paragraph goes on to say that suspension should be considered only where there is cause to suspect a child is at risk of harm, or the case is so serious that there might be grounds for dismissal.
• No settlement agreement to close a child-safety case. Paragraph 492: settlement agreements, “by which a person agrees to resign if the employer agrees not to pursue disciplinary action and both parties agree a form of words to be used in any future reference, should not be used, where there are allegations that indicate the person is a risk or poses a risk of harm to children or deemed not suitable to work with children.”
• A resignation does not end the case. Paragraph 493: “Schools and colleges should not cease their investigations if the person leaves, resigns or ceases to provide their services.” A sanction may not be possible once notice expires, “but it is important to reach and record an outcome wherever possible” (paragraph 494).
• The DBS referral. Paragraph 428: “There is a legal requirement for schools and colleges to make a referral to the DBS where they remove an individual from regulated activity (or would have removed an individual had they not left), and they believe the individual has” engaged in relevant conduct, satisfied the harm test, or been cautioned or convicted of a relevant offence, in relation to children and/or adults. The words in brackets are why the resignation case still needs an outcome.
• The teacher misconduct referral. Paragraph 432: where a teacher's employer, including an agency, “dismisses or ceases to use the services of a teacher because of serious misconduct, or might have dismissed them or ceased to use their services had they not left first, they must consider whether to refer the case to the Secretary of State, as required by sections 141D and 141E of the Education Act 2002.”

The allegations against staff guide covers the safeguarding process itself; the disciplinary follows it rather than leading it.

A care provider registered with the CQC in England has a duty that runs alongside the disciplinary. Under regulation 19(5) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, where a person it employs no longer meets the criteria in regulation 19(1) (good character; the qualifications, competence, skills and experience the work needs; and the health to do it, after reasonable adjustments), the registered person must “take such action as is necessary and proportionate to ensure that the requirement in that paragraph is complied with”, and, if the person is a health care professional, social worker or other professional registered with a health or social care regulator, must “inform the regulator in question”. Regulation 19 reaches volunteers too: it counts a person providing services voluntarily as employed (paragraph (7), referring to regulation 2(2)(c)). The CQC Regulation 19 guide covers the rest of the regulation.

The DBS duty is not only a school's. Section 35 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006, which extends to England and Wales, requires any regulated activity provider to give the DBS the prescribed information when it withdraws permission for a person to engage in regulated activity, or “would or might have done so if P had not otherwise ceased to engage in the activity”, because it thinks the automatic barring criteria apply, the person has engaged in relevant conduct, or the harm test is satisfied. That reaches care providers and charities working in regulated activity, and volunteers as well as staff. The duty to refer guide sets out when and what to send.

In a charity the trustees are ultimately responsible for the charity as employer, so the procedure needs to say who has the authority to dismiss and who hears an appeal. In a small charity where every manager has been involved, the Code's preference for an appeal heard by a manager “who has not previously been involved in the case” may mean a trustee who has kept out of it until then.

Where ComplyChat fits, and where it does not

Many disciplinary cases turn on a question the procedure cannot answer by itself: what had the employee been told? The instruction not to give a resident's family a personal number, the reminder to report a medication error before the end of the shift, the change to the lone-working arrangements for a home visit – in many schools, services and charities those went out as a message in a staff group, and the manager who sent it may since have changed phone or left. When the hearing turns on whether the employee knew the rule, the organisation's evidence is whatever it can still find. The Code expects copies of the written evidence to go with the invitation letter, and an organisation can provide them fairly and completely only for messages it holds.

ComplyChat is not an HR case management system: it does not run the procedure, hold the case file or send the letters, and it cannot recover messages already sent in WhatsApp or anywhere else. What it does is give work conversations a channel the organisation owns. Messages are recorded on the server as they are sent; everyone added is told the channel is on the record and can object or leave; and staff without a work account, such as bank and agency workers or volunteers, join with a mobile number verified by SMS. On paid plans, once the organisation's Microsoft 365 tenant is connected, conversations are kept under the retention schedules within its own Microsoft 365 subscription, so an instruction given to a team can be produced with its date when a case depends on it. ComplyChat Free is personal messaging with one private group, direct messages and three calendar months of recent history, with no Microsoft 365 archive, which is shorter than many disciplinary cases take to arise and conclude.

A question for the next leadership or trustees' meeting: in the last disciplinary case, could the organisation show from its own records the rule or instruction the employee was said to have broken, and the date they were given it?

Questions people ask

What are the 4 stages of disciplinary action?

The Acas Code describes a written warning, then a final written warning, then dismissal or another contractual penalty “such as demotion or loss of seniority” (paragraphs 19 to 22), and a serious first offence can go straight to a final written warning. Many employers add an informal or verbal warning first, which makes four stages; the Code itself does not require one or fix a number of stages.

What does disciplinary action involve?

Disciplinary action is the formal outcome of a disciplinary procedure: a written warning, a final written warning, dismissal, or another contractual penalty such as demotion. Under the Acas Code it should follow an investigation, a written notification with the evidence, a meeting at which the employee can be accompanied, and a written decision with a right of appeal; an investigatory meeting or a suspension is not disciplinary action in itself (paragraphs 7 and 8).

What are the steps involved in chairing a disciplinary hearing?

The chair, ideally not the person who investigated, explains the complaint and goes through the evidence, lets the employee set out their case and answer the allegations, allows them to ask questions, present evidence and call relevant witnesses, and lets the companion put and sum up the case (Acas Code paragraphs 6, 12 and 17). The chair then decides “whether or not disciplinary or any other action is justified” and tells the employee in writing (paragraph 18).

How long should an investigation at work take?

No law sets a period for a workplace investigation: the Acas Code asks for investigations “without unreasonable delay” (paragraph 5) and says employers and employees “should not unreasonably delay meetings, decisions or confirmation of those decisions” (paragraph 4). The one fixed clock is the companion's: a hearing postponed because the worker's chosen companion cannot attend moves to a reasonable time within five working days of the date the employer proposed, under section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999.

Can I lose my job at a disciplinary hearing?

Yes: a disciplinary hearing can end in dismissal, and gross misconduct “may call for dismissal without notice for a first offence”, although the Acas Code says “a fair disciplinary process should always be followed” first (paragraph 23). Protection from ordinary unfair dismissal needs two years' service where the effective date of termination is before 1 January 2027, and six months where it is on or after that date (section 25 of the Employment Rights Act 2025).

Official guidance and your next step

The primary sources are the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures (2015), paragraphs 1 to 31 for discipline; section 207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992; section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999; section 3 of the Employment Rights Act 1996; and, for the 2026 and 2027 changes, S.I. 2026/954 and S.I. 2026/559. For schools in England, Keeping children safe in education 2026, Parts three and four, and regulation 7 of the School Staffing (England) Regulations 2009; for care providers in England, regulation 19; and, for England and Wales, section 35 of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006. Quotations are from those pages as read on 9 and 10 November 2026.

This guide is a summary for employers in Great Britain, with duties for schools and care providers in England noted where they apply, and is not legal advice. A case that may end in dismissal, involves a child or an adult at risk, or overlaps with a grievance or a whistleblowing concern is one to take advice on.

Then do one thing: open your disciplinary procedure and check three lines – that it says suspension is not disciplinary action and is reviewed, that it names who may dismiss and who hears an appeal, and that it says who decides on a DBS, teacher misconduct or professional regulator referral when a case ends, including when the person resigns first.