The Acas Code is being rewritten: what the 2026 draft changes
TL;DR: Acas has published a draft rewrite of its Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, the first full revision since 2009. The big one: informal resolution (sorting a problem out through a conversation instead of a formal process) moves into the Code itself, so tribunals will start weighing whether you tried it. The consultation closes at 11:59pm on 23 September 2026.
Start with what the Code does
The Acas Code is not guidance in the soft sense. It is statutory, meaning it sits in law under section 199 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.
Two things follow from that. Employment tribunals must take it into account when deciding whether a dismissal or a grievance was handled fairly. And under section 207A, an unreasonable failure to follow it can move a compensatory award (the money a tribunal orders an employer to pay) by up to 25% in either direction. Employer ignores the Code, the award goes up. Employee ignores it, the award comes down.
So a full rewrite matters more than a guidance refresh. Anything that moves into the body of the Code becomes something a tribunal weighs.
I advise every client to follow the Code, whether or not the 25% adjustment could ever apply to them. It is the clearest benchmark of a fair process anyone has, it is free, and if you ever have to explain your decision to a tribunal, having followed it is the cheapest defence going.
Why Acas is doing this now
The Code was last fully revised in 2009. The only change since was a 2015 amendment covering the right to bring someone with you to a hearing. Seventeen years is a long time in employment relations.
The numbers behind the rewrite are blunt. Acas estimates formal disciplinary and grievance procedures cost UK employers £2.36 billion a year. It reckons the same issues handled informally would cost around £250 million, roughly ten times less. Separate Acas research this year found 44% of working-age adults in Great Britain experienced conflict at work in the previous twelve months.
The draft is built around one idea: catch things earlier, before they harden into a formal process nobody wanted.
What “informal resolution” actually means
The phrase does a lot of work in the draft, so it is worth being concrete. Informal resolution is dealing with a concern through a conversation rather than a procedure. No investigation, no invite letter, no hearing, no outcome letter, no right of appeal.
In practice it looks like:
- A manager raising repeated lateness in a one-to-one, agreeing what changes, and following up a fortnight later, instead of issuing a disciplinary invite
- Two colleagues who cannot work together having a facilitated conversation (a structured chat with a neutral third person in the room) rather than one of them submitting a written grievance
- A performance concern handled with agreed support and a check-in date, written up as a short note both people have seen
- A manager asking a worker’s union rep or a trusted colleague to sit in on an early conversation, to help both sides say what they mean
The draft is careful about one thing. An informal approach must never, by itself, lead to formal disciplinary action. You cannot have a “quiet word” and then treat it as a first warning, which is exactly what tends to happen in smaller companies.
Where this lands on your paperwork
Informal resolution already appears in the current Code, but only in the foreword, which sits outside the statutory text. It carries no legal weight at all.
The draft moves it in. Paragraphs 16 to 23 cover employers raising concerns about conduct or performance informally. Paragraphs 53 to 61 cover workers raising concerns informally. Once that sits inside the Code, tribunals will take it into account, including when deciding whether to adjust an award.
Two practical consequences follow, and both land on paperwork you probably use every week:
- A disciplinary invite letter (the letter telling someone they are being called to a formal hearing) will need to state what informal steps were taken, or the reason none were (paragraph 32)
- A written grievance (a formal complaint raised by a worker) will need to do the same, and set out how the worker would like the concern resolved if they can say (paragraph 63)
If you are running a template that goes straight from investigation to invite, that template stops being fit for purpose.
What else is in the draft
- Suspension gets a necessity test. Suspension means sending someone home on full pay while an investigation runs. The current Code implies it should only be used where necessary but leaves it there. The draft sets out the limited circumstances where it is appropriate (paragraph 28) and adds good practice on how you tell someone they are being suspended (paragraph 30). Suspending by default, because it feels like the safe option, becomes harder to defend.
- Equality Act obligations appear for the first time. The current Code says nothing about discrimination in the process itself, or about reasonable adjustments (changes an employer must make so a disabled worker is not put at a disadvantage, for example holding a hearing in an accessible room or allowing extra time to prepare). The draft adds guidance at paragraphs 14 to 15 with examples, signposted throughout.
- Manager training is named as good practice (paragraph 13). Acas deliberately used “good practice” rather than “should”, recognising that training budgets vary.
- Mediation gets its own section (paragraphs 90 to 95). Mediation is a confidential process where a trained neutral person helps two people reach their own agreement. They have no power to impose an outcome. It is absent from the current Code entirely.
- The language is de-legalised. Acas has stripped back “a case to answer”, “allegations”, “adjourn”, “penalty” and “first offence”. The draft talks about employer and worker “concerns” for informal stages, keeping “disciplinary” and “grievance” for formal ones.
- Long grievances get pushed back on. Both employer and worker representatives told Acas that sprawling written grievances slow everything down and raise the temperature. The draft says a short, clear written explanation is often enough to start with, with room to add detail later.
- A 2018 tribunal decision moves into the Code. The statutory right to be accompanied lets a worker bring a colleague or union rep to a formal hearing. If that person is unavailable, the worker can propose a new date within five working days. In Talon Engineering v Smith, the Employment Appeal Tribunal made clear that refusing to wait a bit longer can make a dismissal unfair. That currently sits in the non-statutory foreword. It moves into paragraph 86.
The worker versus employee problem
The draft swaps “employee” for “worker” in most places, which widens who the Code covers. “Worker” is the bigger category. It includes employees, but also casual staff, zero-hours people and some contractors: everyone who has employment rights without being fully self-employed.
Here is the catch. The 25% adjustment comes from section 207A, and section 207A only covers employees. So the draft asks you to follow a Code written for workers, while the financial penalty for ignoring it can only ever be applied when the person is an employee.
In practice, run the same process for everyone. It is fairer, it is simpler to train managers on, and you avoid guessing at someone’s status under pressure. Just know that the cost of getting it wrong is not the same in every case. Acas has spotted this and is asking directly whether it causes problems, so it is worth a comment if you respond.
Acas is also asking two open questions that will interest anyone drafting policy: whether the Code should be retitled, given its scope is now wider than formal procedures, and whether AI in disciplinary and grievance processes needs addressing.
What happens next
A consultation is a formal public comment period. Acas publishes a draft, anyone with an interest can respond, and it uses the responses to decide what the final version says. Nothing changes in law while it runs.
This one opened on 30 July 2026 and closes at 11:59pm on 23 September 2026, with 25 questions and separate response forms for individuals and organisations. Both the draft Code and the consultation are on the Acas site.
After that, Acas reviews the responses and may modify the draft. If it proceeds, the Code goes to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. If approved, it is laid before Parliament. The non-statutory guidance (the longer, practical advice that sits alongside the Code but carries no legal weight) gets updated too.
Realistically that puts a live Code in 2027, in the same window as the Employment Rights Act changes to unfair dismissal. Two sets of process changes arriving together.
What to do before September
- Respond to the consultation. Small employers and founder-led teams are exactly who Acas says it wants to hear from on whether the draft is proportionate. If you have run a grievance with no HR function and no legal budget, that experience is worth more than another law firm submission.
- Read the draft against your own templates. Pull your disciplinary invite letter and your grievance form. Neither will have a field for informal steps taken. That is your first edit.
- Look at how you use suspension. If it happens by default in any category of case, that habit needs a rethink now, not in 2027.
- Check your manager training covers the informal conversation. Most training covers running a formal hearing. Far less of it covers the conversation that stops one being needed.
The direction is clear even if the wording changes. Any employer who can show a genuine attempt at early resolution will be in a stronger position. Any employer who goes straight to formal will have to explain why.
kerbache hr works with founder-led tech, AI and creative scale-ups across the UK, building HR that holds up under scrutiny. If your disciplinary and grievance process is a template someone downloaded three years ago, that is worth a conversation before 2027. Get in touch.