Free tool
A dated plan for either procedure, and an honest account of which dates the law actually fixes.
The timetable
Pick a start date and the dated plan appears here, with each step marked according to whether the Acas Code requires it or you chose it. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The plan is built in your browser.
Search for a disciplinary timetable and you will be handed a list of deadlines. Five days to invite, five days to appeal, and so on, laid out as though somebody would be in breach for missing them. The Acas Code of Practice sets no such deadlines. It sets none at all.
What it actually asks is that employers and employees raise and deal with issues promptly and do not unreasonably delay meetings, decisions or the confirmation of those decisions, and that a meeting be held without unreasonable delay while allowing the employee reasonable time to prepare their case. Promptness is the requirement. A number is not.
That matters in both directions. An employer who believes they have five days may take all five when the situation called for two, and an employer who misses an invented deadline may think they have broken a rule that was never there. The real question a tribunal asks is whether the delay was reasonable.
There is exactly one fixed number in the whole Code. Where the employee’s chosen companion cannot attend the hearing, the employee may propose an alternative time, and the employer must postpone to it provided it is reasonable and falls within 5 working days of the day originally proposed. That comes from section 10 of the Employment Relations Act 1999.
It gets remembered as an appeal deadline. It is not an appeal deadline. The length of an appeal window is entirely the employer’s own choice, and five working days there is convention rather than law. The timetable above marks each step accordingly, so you can see which parts of your own plan are requirements and which are simply decisions you made.
Working days mean Monday to Friday. Bank holidays are not deducted, so add a day for any falling inside your plan. The statutory definition of a working day does exclude them, along with Christmas Day and Good Friday, and it differs between Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland, which is why a calculator that quietly guessed would be worse than one that says so.
The plan is also a starting point rather than a script. A complex investigation or an employee off sick will move everything, and moving it for a good reason is not unreasonable delay. See our disclaimer.
What goes in the invitation letter, what the allegation should actually say, whether this is misconduct or capability, and what a reasonable outcome looks like: those are the parts that decide how it ends. Tarn.hr works through them with you and writes the letters.