Autumn unfair dismissal update for schools

From January 2027, employees will gain ordinary unfair dismissal protection after six months rather than two years. The cap on unfair dismissal compensatory awards will also be removed, potentially increasing the value of claims, particularly for higher earners, and affecting both the heads of loss pursued and employee expectations around settlement. At the same time, wider reforms will change the risks associated with some dismissal and restructuring exercises.

With much less scope to rely on short service, and potentially significantly greater financial exposure when things go wrong, understanding what makes a dismissal fair, and where the traps lie, will become increasingly important.

This will be a practical, technically focused session, using real-world dismissal scenarios to explore some of the more difficult questions employers and HR teams need to navigate.

Much of the existing law on unfair dismissal, including fair reason, fair process, the range of reasonable responses, is not changing. What is changing is who can bring a claim, and how quickly. That means dismissal scenarios that employers have historically managed informally or without legal consequence will now carry real tribunal risk. In this session, we will work through some of those scenarios in detail. We will also touch on the new fire and re-hire restrictions as they relate to specific common dismissal scenarios.

We will consider issues such as:

• Managing performance under the new six-month regime, including where employers retain a six-month probationary period and performance concerns arise close to the qualifying threshold

• Managing senior and complex capability dismissals, including proportionate process, long notice periods and the role of garden leave and settlement agreements

• Avoiding fixed-term contract traps, including non-renewal, successive fixed-term arrangements and managing the point at which unfair dismissal protection is acquired

• Navigating redundancy and restructuring, including selection pools, consultation, alternative employment and bumping where employees with much shorter service will have unfair dismissal protection

• Understanding the new fire and re-hire and fire and replace rules, including when outsourcing work to contractors or agency workers could result in an automatically unfair dismissal

• Reassessing exit strategy and risk, including protected conversations, settlement agreements and the implications of earlier unfair dismissal protection, longer tribunal time limits and uncapped compensatory awards.

The cost of the webinar is £150 plus VAT. The cost includes a manager's guide to dismissal, providing practical guidance that you can use within your organisation after the session.

Missed part 1?

Our spring session focused on probationary periods and managing dismissals during the early months of employment in preparation for the new six-month qualifying period. A recording of that session is available to purchase separately and includes our model probationary procedure and line manager's guide to probation.

You do not need to have attended part 1 to join this session.