You most likely built your disciplinary and grievance policy around the Acas Code of Practice, guidance that nobody has updated since 2009. Sixteen years of hybrid teams, remote work and changing how people actually raise concerns with each other, and the rulebook underneath it all hasn’t moved.
Why the Acas Code of Practice Is Being Rewritten
That’s about to change. On 30 July 2026, Acas opened a consultation on a full rewrite of the Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, its first since 2009. It’s open until 23 September 2026.
Acas’s own research found 44% of working-age adults in Great Britain experienced conflict at work in the last twelve months. Most of it never needed to go anywhere near a formal process. The new Code builds directly on that fact.
How the Draft Code Affects Tribunal Awards
Here’s why it’s worth knowing about now rather than when it lands. This is the Code employment tribunals use to decide whether to adjust an award by up to 25% where an employer, or an employee, unreasonably failed to follow it. Change the Code, and you change what “reasonable” looks like.
Say a founder skips the awkward conversation and goes straight to a written warning because it feels cleaner and quicker. Right now, that’s a judgement call. Under the draft Code, that could show up at tribunal as evidence you didn’t try to resolve things informally first, and it could cost you at the 25% adjustment stage.
What’s Changing Under the New Rules
A few of the changes actually on the table:
- Informal resolution counts, for the first time. The statutory Code itself would require you to try sorting things out informally before going formal.
- New letters requirement. Invite someone to a disciplinary meeting, or a worker raises a formal grievance, and you’d need to state what informal steps you took first, or explain why you took none.
- Suspension gets tighter. A new test would limit suspension to specific circumstances, reinforcing what case law has already been saying: suspension isn’t neutral.
- ‘Worker’ replaces ‘employee’ through most of the Code, widening who it covers.
- New sections on reasonable adjustments, tied to Equality Act obligations, manager training as good practice, and mediation with formal processes potentially pausing while mediation happens.
- Expect grievances to start short and clear, not a ten-page document — you can add more detail later if needed.
What the Acas Code of Practice Changes Mean for Your Business
None of this is law yet. Nothing changes this week. But Acas puts the cost of formal disciplinary and grievance procedures at £2.36 billion a year across UK employers, and rising, with informal resolution costing roughly ten times less. The direction of travel is clear: informal first, well documented, less reaching for a formal letter because it feels safer.
Founders who build that habit now, actually try to sort things out before going formal, and write down that they tried, will already be doing what the new Code expects. Founders who don’t will be relearning their whole process at the same time as everyone else, usually mid-crisis.
I’ve spent twenty years watching guidance like this shift, across manufacturing, medical devices, clinical services and publishing. The pattern’s always the same. The businesses that run into trouble aren’t the ones without a policy. They’re the ones who never questioned whether their policy still matches how a tribunal actually thinks.
If you want a steer on where your current process would land under the draft Code, get in touch with our HR support team.
Source: Acas consultation – draft Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures