Terms and Conditions
Notices of Terms and Conditions
1. General terms and conditions
2. Copyrighting and other terms and conditions
3. Fair Usage Policy
4. Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme
Thank you for taking the time to visit myhrdept.co.uk. This site is wholly owned by HRR Solutions Ltd, Company No 4081891, Vat Reg No: 727 5322 35.
PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS ENTIRE NOTICE. BY CHOOSING TO PURCHASE ITEMS OR SERVICES FROM OR TO SUBSCRIBE TO MYHRDEPT.CO.UK, OR TO USE ANY OF THE FREELY AVAILABLE INFORMATION ON MYHRDEPT.CO.UK YOU ARE ACKNOWLEDGING THE TERMS OF THIS NOTICE AND ACCEPT THEM.
1. General terms and conditions
1.1. If you use any document or service which you have accessed through myhrdept.co.uk, it will be under the terms stated here.
1.2. Documents available from and services provided through myhrdept.co.uk have been prepared by HRR Solutions Ltd, and when we refer to ‘we’ or ‘us’ or ‘myhrdept.co.uk’ or ‘myhrdept’ in the Notice, we mean that Company. Where we refer to ‘you’ or our ‘customers’ we mean the person or persons or organisations using our information or services and where in the event of a dispute it is that person who has reasonable cause to be in dispute with us through loss or damage caused directly to them through their direct use of our products or services.
1.3. Please note that the documents have been prepared in compliance with the law in England, Wales &, in most cases, Scotland as at the date of publication. They will not be suitable for other parts of the UK, or elsewhere.
1.4. It is your responsibility to ensure that documents are used for their intended purpose and within appropriate geographies (see 1.3.), and that the correct documents are selected for the intended purpose.
1.5. We try to ensure that our products comply with the relevant aspects of employment law and are in line with best practice standards recommended by the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS). However, the law is constantly changing and evolving and new cases in court can dictate a change of practice for employers. We cannot accept any liability for any loss or damages howsoever caused through the use or misuse of any of the documents, advice or other services supplied to you by us, whether or not that loss or damage is caused by our error, omission or negligence.
1.6. In any case and should clause 1.5. be deemed unreasonable by an English court (who have sole jurisdiction over any disputes arising in relation to these terms) our liability to you will not extend beyond a maximum of the lower of three months fees; or the whole fees already paid by you; or the actual price of any individual document purchased by you. There will be no liability whatsoever to you in circumstances where loss or damage stemmed from freely available information or advice obtained from us.
1.7. Notwithstanding clause 1.6. we may at our sole discretion compensate those (and only those) of our customers who choose to become members of the Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme (ETGS) as described elsewhere in these terms for the whole or a proportion of any compensation award made against them by an English Welsh or Scottish employment tribunal in circumstances where it is established that the proportion or whole of the compensation award could reasonably be concluded to be due to our serious error, negligence or omission. In such circumstances our discretional liability will be limited to the extent to which we are at fault and to a maximum of £10,000 (ten thousand pounds). We will if we deem it necessary appoint an independent and experienced tribunal lawyer (at our expense) to estimate the extent of our fault in circumstances where the compensation award is only partially reflective of our fault.
1.8. myhrdept.co.uk aims to provide accurate, authoritative information on the subjects it covers. It is offered to subscribers and users on the understanding that the publisher is not in business as a lawyer and that the service is not attempting to a emulate the services of a lawyer or consultant, from whom further support may from time to time be necessary.
1.9. myhrdept.co.uk is intended to be used by employers solely in connection with their employees working at a single location or, in the case of mobile roles, operating from a single company base. Our subscription and other services are not designed to be used in connection with multi site businesses unless expressly agreed by us (normally a myhrdept.co.uk subscription will be required for each location), for the employees of a third party, third party contractors, the self employed, agency or other non employee workers, partners, equity partners or share holding Directors. Where we offer information and services in connection with categories of worker other than directly employed employees we do so in an effort to be helpful to the needs of our customers but, and for the avoidance of all doubt, we will not accept any liability whatsoever (including under the ETGS) for any losses or damages that arise in connection with any other category of worker irrespective of whether or not we are deemed to be at fault.
1.10. myhrdept.co.uk is also offered to subscribers and users on the understanding that the publisher is not in business as a health and safety specialist and that the service is not attempting to emulate the services of a health and safety specialist or consultant, from whom further support may from time to time be necessary. The health and safety documents available on this site, in common with all other documents and information, are for general guidance only. Whilst we have considerable experience in advising clients on employment law issues (and will continue to do so subject to the provisos given above) we are not health and safety specialists and cannot currently provide advice on anything other than very basic aspects of health and safety issues in a practical context.
1.11. Terms of supply. We agree to supply and you agree to accept services through myhrdept.co.uk strictly on condition that these services are for your use to help you manage your own business issues (the 'stated purpose'). You agree not to supply myhrdept.co.uk services to any third party who is not directly connected with your business (e.g. to a person who is not an employee or fellow Director), nor will you offer or attempt to sell or make any financial gain from the services we supply to you. You must not use any of our services for anything other than the stated purpose for which they are supplied and to do so may constitute a breach of our legal rights to which we reserve the right to seek remedy.
1.12. Intellectual Property. We reserve intellectual property rights for all of the content contained on myhrdept.co.uk. Where we reasonably believe that you have breached the terms of supply, we reserve the right to (in addition to taking other action) revoke your access to myhrdept.co.uk and cancel your subscription without refund. It is a strict condition of our supplying Services to you that you will use our Services (including written material (hardcopy or in electronic form) including (but not limited to) contracts of employment, the employee handbook, employers guides and HR policies and procedures ONLY in connection with your employees and that you will not use or supply for use any information, advice or documentation we supply in connection with any other person, nor will you allow third parties (including but not limited to other HR services who may be or may seek to be in competition with us) to access or have copies of any of the materials, information or advice provided to you by us.
1.13. Pricing policy & employer declaration. ‘Premium plus’ subscriptions to our service are priced according to the number of employees, annual payroll cost, HR history and the type of business you operate. It is a condition of continuing supply that you provide accurate information upon commencing services with us and that you advise us of any substantial changes that arise. This is normally achieved through your completing & submitting an on-line or paper based ‘employer declaration’. Declaring false, misleading or inaccurate information will be regarded as a fundamental breach of terms and will require you to pay for any services carried out by us on your behalf under the terms of the myhrdept.co.uk ETGS (see elsewhere in these terms) or any other discretionary subsidised, discounted or free work carried out by us for you which we would not have carried out had you not supplied us with false, misleading or inaccurate information. Additionally your supplying false, misleading or inaccurate information will absolve us from all responsibilities to you (financially or otherwise) under these terms including liability for loss or damage.
1.14. Employee database. You are required to update the personnel database provided to you in ‘my account’ on myhrdept.co.uk. This is important to enable us to be able to customise documents and contracts etc on your behalf if you subscribe to the premium plus services. Where you choose not to store full details about your employee, you should nevertheless record as a minimum the name, job title and department of each employee as a separate data-base record. We will not provide services to support you in dealing with any HR issues, nor will we provide cover under the ETGS as is described elsewhere in these terms unless at least a minimum personnel record existed for the employee at the point at which the issue requiring support or services under the ETGS arose. You should delete employees’ records when the employee has left your employment, but no sooner than 6 months after the end of their notice period. Employee information should be kept for longer than this in the event of any dispute arising between you and your employee. While employment tribunals have strict time limits for bringing claims (3 - 6 months) an employee could bring a breach of contract claim in the civil courts up to 6 years from the alleged breach.
1.15. Direct Debits – increasing/decreasing the amount you pay. We are strictly governed by the direct debit guarantee operated by the major UK banks, and under this guarantee we cannot vary the fee charged to you unless we have strictly complied with certain conditions, which normally include our notifying you in writing in advance of any increase in charges. If you have opt for our premium plus subscription and choose to add our ETGS scheme, the amount charged to you will be to some extent dependent on the number of employees you have and the cost of your payroll. You should notify us promptly of any increase in staff numbers or payroll costs so that we may carry out any necessary recalculations. We will review you staff numbers (by looking at your personnel database on myhrdept.co.uk) periodically and we may increase your premium to reflect additional ETGS cover if required.
1.16. Subscription minimum term. Premium and Premium Plus subscriptions and the Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme (ETGS) are for a minimum of 12 months from the date of purchase, irrespective of the payment method preferred. The ‘date of purchase’ is the date of first payment being made to us by you, howsoever that payment is made . In choosing to purchase a Premium or Premium Plus subscription or to subscribe to the ETGS, you agree to this clause and you agree specifically to make to us all payments due for the minimum period of 12 months in full. Should you cancel your payments before the end of the 12 month term you agree to pay to us on demand the balance of payments that would have been due over the remaining period of the term not later than 30 days from our demand for payment. If you fail to make such a payment to us on demand and in accordance with this clause we reserve the right to add the demand for payment and you agree to pay reasonable administration charges (of not more than the greater of £50 or 25% of the outstanding liability) to us in respect of our administration costs incurred in connection with the recovery of the amounts due. After the minimum period of 12 months payments and unless otherwise cancelled by you the Services will continue and payments will continue to be taken.
1.17. Cancelling your myhrdept.co.uk subscription. We hope you will be delighted with our services and will never want to cancel! However you may (subject to clause 1.16) cancel your subscription by providing us with 3 months notice of your intention to do so. Your notice should be in writing (an email to enquiries@myhrdept.co.uk will suffice but a text message will not) to: myhrdept.co.uk cancellations, Unit 3, The Switchback, Gardner Road, Maidenhead, SL6 7RJ.
1.18. Conditions of cancellation. None of the materials provided to you by us (whether electronic or hard copy) may be sent, given or passed to any third party (e.g. your new HR provider if you have one). For the avoidance of doubt this includes (but is not limited to) employment contracts, the employee handbook, employers guides and HR policies and procedures. You specifically agree that you will not allow third parties (including but not limited to other HR services who may be or may seek to be in competition with us) to access or have copies of any of the materials, information or advice provided to you by us. You may continue to use contracts and other information supplied by us for your own employees beyond the expiry of the period of notice of cancellation but you should be aware that documents can become quickly out of date.
1.19. The Notices of Terms & Conditions described here (including those below) are subject to the sole jurisdiction of the English Courts. If a court or any other body having the power to rule on disputes decides that any part of these Notices is not reasonable or cannot be enforced for any reason, this will not affect the validity of the other parts of these Notices which will continue to be in full force and effect.
2. Copyrighting & Data Protection
2.1. Copyright. We hope that this site will be used regularly by small & medium sized employers and we have priced the products to ensure that employers should not be put off from repeat use of the site. However, a great deal of time, effort and cost has been put into developing this site and its product range, and we require customers using the site not to reproduce any part or whole of any product in any way, nor store in a retrieval system or to transmit by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise. All rights are reserved on this site and on all products except where expressly marked otherwise. The only exceptions to this are where you need to make a copy of a document for your own personal records. We allow you to make reasonable copies for this purpose only as a part of our copyright conditions.
This requirement is also in the interests of our customers, since products are updated regularly to reflect new standards or changes in the law. Customers who breach this agreement and make copies of original products will not benefit from any updates that may have been made, and this could result in legal breach.
2.2. Data Protection. We take our responsibilities regarding the protection of personal privacy very seriously. By supplying us with details about you and your business you give us permission to use that information in the course of our providing services to you and for the purposes of our informing you of additional services or HR/employment law developments. We will not supply information about you to third party organisations without your consent.
You warrant that you have all relevant permissions in accordance with the Data Protection regulations to supply information about your employees to us, and that we may review such information and records in the ordinary course of our providing services to you whether in respect of employees in general or in particular. You warrant that any fines or penalties imposed upon us as a result of your supplying such information to us (whether via myhrdept.co.uk employee records or any other mechanism) without proper permission will be met in full by you.
You also warrant that only 'authorised persons' have access to your login details for the site and you that you use, regularly change and securely store passwords of sufficient complexity to ensure that only authorised persons are able to access your myhrdept.co.uk account. Myhrdept.co.uk is an on-line service that can be accessed from any computer anywhere in the world. We cannot be held responsible for documents lost or personal data revealed through your failing to protect your passwords and/or other failures of your responsibilities under the DPA. Where an 'authorised person' leaves your business, you should change your password for myhrdept.co.uk. It is good practice to regularly change passwords and ensure that your password pattern is not predictable through using a mix of letters, symbols and numbers.
2.3. Loss of data upon expiry of subscription. Subscription holders can store details about employees in their account in myhrdept.co.uk. This allows for easier storage and creation of documents and letters etc for those employees. Where a subscription is not renewed, or a direct debit instruction is cancelled, this data will be lost. We will make reasonable efforts to remind customers of subscription renewal dates and of the consequences of failing to reinstate direct debits, but we will not be responsible for the consequences of a loss of data under such circumstances. Similarly should we cancel a subscription by our own choosing all data entered into the system will be deleted and again we will have no liability to you under these circumstances.
2.4. Data protection queries. If you are concerned about any of the data that may be held by us about you as a result of your transactions with myhrdept.co.uk (or for any other reason) please send an e-mail in the initial instance stating your concern and the reasons for it by emailing us from the following link, contact us. Mark your email ‘Data Protection Query’. We will fully investigate your concern and respond promptly indicating the course of action we intend to follow to progress your query.
3. Fair Usage Policy (Part of the Notices of Terms and Conditions)
This Policy describes myhrdept.co.uk’s approach to providing support time to our customers. In particular it describes what we will do if the support requirements of one customer appear excessive over the requirements of others. This Policy should be read in conjunction with our other terms and conditions.
General principles
3.1. We base our fee structure on our expectations of usage, using the general premise that the more employees a customer has the more support time they are likely to need.
3.2. We recognise that employment issues can arise unexpectedly, and as such we will not generally increase our fee as a result of an unlucky period requiring more support than normal.
Our expectations of our customers
3.3. We expect our customers to behave honestly, decently, with due diligence and in good faith at all times with regard to their employees, ex-employees, prospective employees, workers, contractors and customers.
3.4. AT THE OUTSET OF myhrdept.co.uk cover we expect our customers at to work with us to ensure we construct for them sufficient contracts of employment to meet their business needs. This includes reading the draft template we send promptly and advising us of the optional clauses they require including and any specialist clauses required. We also expect customers to promptly read the policies and procedures we supply (and advising us of any amendments or specific policies additionally required) and to read the draft employee handbook and to include bespoke Company information where marked and make any other bespoke amendments where marked before returning the document to us by email for finalisation.
3.5a. DURING their myhrdept.co.uk cover we expect our customers to contact us by email or by the business hours telephone number given if they become aware of a potential employment issue or dispute arising concerning current, ex or prospective employees or workers. This is particularly important for Premium Plus customers to ensure that any additional warranties paid for under the myhrdept.co.uk Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme will continue to apply. We will help our Premium customers identify the correct documents for usage (for our customers to complete on-line using myhrdept.co.uk) and we will additionally prepare most documentation etc for our Premium Plus customers.
3.5b. The requirement to notify us described in 5a includes (but is not limited to) disciplinary action (verbal warning or above); grievances received; dismissals planned; retirement disputes or enforced retirement; redundancies; flexible working requests (that won’t be granted); any planned detrimental change to contractual terms (including pay, hours, days, duties or location of work); any proposed deduction from wages; any reported acts of alleged discrimination (however minor) or the receipt of statutory discrimination questionnaires; claims or complaints about employment status; complaints or issues arising from a woman’s pregnancy, maternity leave (or proposed), or her actual or planned return from maternity leave; concerns over an employee’s legal right to work in the UK etc; equal pay complaints; an intention to acquire a business or service contracts which may result in an inbound TUPE transfer of employees; an intention to sell or dispose of a business or service contract which will result in an outbound TUPE transfer of employees.
3.6. We expect our customers to conduct their own HR meetings & hearings with employees but we will provide templates and guidance where necessary to assist with this. In some cases our customers may want us to assist directly with certain meetings or hearings. Where we agree to do so we may charge a reasonable fee and expenses for attending customer premises but will in all cases advise our customers of this prior to finalising arrangements.
3.7. We expect our Premium Plus customers to meet with us at least annually to review their HR system, business plans and the impact of these on their people practices. We prefer to have these meetings face to face where we can, but where our customer’s premises are too far from one of our business locations we will offer the opportunity a) for our customer to travel to our offices; or b) to conduct the annual review by telephone.
3.8. We expect our customers to update the myhrdept.co.uk employee database to ensure that all employees are registered on the system. This saves considerable time when preparing document templates etc. Employees leaving the employ of our customer should not be deleted from myhrdept.co.uk until 6 months after their leave date, unless documents relating to that employee and stored on myhrdept.co.uk are first printed off and kept in hardcopy on the employee’s personnel file.
Excessive support requirements
3.9. We expect ebbs and flows of support requirements from our customers according to their circumstances and needs. These will not affect the support provided through myhrdept.co.uk, which we will flex according to the needs of our customers. Our Premium Plus customers are expected to require additional support over and above Premium customers and this is factored into the price of the Premium Plus package.
3.10. Notwithstanding 3.9 above, if we reasonably judge the support required by a particular customer to be consistently excessive (and our experience indicates to us that it will continue to be so) we will:
i. in the initial instance contact the customer to explore ways in which to reduce the support burden (and provide reasonable time for these measures to take affect); and then if necessary
ii. agree with the customer a support surcharge to be added to subsequent fees; or
iii. offer the customer an option to cancel the myhrdept HR support package; or if the customer is unwilling to do so
iv. cancel the customer’s myhrdept HR support package with a minimum of 1 month’s notice to enable the customer to arrange an alternative provider.
Complaints under the Fair Usage Policy
3.11. If a customer has reason to feel aggrieved at actions taken or proposed by myhrdept.co.uk. under this policy s/he may submit a written complaint to Catherine Larke, Director, at the registered office.
3.12. The complaint will normally be investigated within 28 days of receipt and a response issues to the complainant within a further 14 days of the conclusion of the investigation of the complaint.
4. Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme (Part of the Notices of Terms and Conditions)
These terms and conditions describe the myhrdept.co.uk’s Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme optionally available to all myhrdept.co.uk Premium Plus subscribers joining the service or renewing from August 2011 or earlier where membership of the scheme has been expressly granted by us.
The terms and conditions relating to the ETGS should be read in conjunction with general terms and conditions for myhrdept.co.uk.
Overview & general principles
4.1. Scope. The ETGS is designed to provide protection against the costs of contesting claims made against you by prospective or ex-employees. For the scheme to operate ‘claims’ must be made to and accepted by an employment tribunal. ‘Costs’ includes the costs of responding to a tribunal application, preparing for a hearing and representation at the hearing by an experienced tribunal lawyer (where we deem this to be necessary). The ETGS applies to single claims only (not co-joined or multiple claims) and only to claims brought by ex-employees or prospective employees i.e. dismissed employees or those who have resigned or job applicants who had applied for an advertised employment vacancy. The ETGS does not apply to other categories of worker, nor does it apply to claims pursued in legal forums other than the employment tribunal system of England, Wales and Scotland.
4.2. Providing partial ETGS cover for ‘accepted risk cases’. Some HR services are in reality an insurance product with ‘HR advice’ added on. myhrdept.co.uk is different in that, unlike many insurers, we recognise that risk cannot always be avoided, for example when carrying out the many categories of dismissal that is permitted by UK domestic laws. We are happy to use our extensive experience to advise our customers on the levels of risk attached to particular courses of action. Parts of the ETGS cover may be refused where an accepted risk approach is followed, but where we have discussed and agreed the action concerned with the customer we will still honour our promise under the ETGS to respond to and prepare for the tribunal hearing subject to the terms below. Because representation by a lawyer is provided by a third party we will not normally cover the cost of tribunal lawyers where an accepted risk is involved, but we will pass on our specially negotiated rates to our customers in these circumstances.
4.3. Minimising fees and excess charges. To join the ETGS we charge a modest premium and provide attractive levels of benefit to reflect the reality of the situation. Paying an experienced HR company or lawyer to prepare for and attend an employment tribunal on your behalf will always cost thousands of pounds, and the final cost could run past £10,000 in some cases. Our experience suggests most sensible employers will only rarely receive an employment tribunal claim, and so we have designed the ETGS to reflect this. Under the ETGS the full costs of our responding to a claim and preparing for a tribunal hearing on your behalf will be paid by us, and we will pay for a tribunal lawyer from an internationally renowned law firm to represent you for up to 2 days per year – most cases are listed for only 1. In the unlikely event of a reasonable employer suffering a second or third tribunal case in a year though we will ask you to make a contribution towards our costs via an excess charge. Similarly if more than 2 days lawyer representation time are required in a year you will be required to pay the balance, and we will afford you our specially negotiated rates in the unlikely event that this proves necessary.
4.4. We expect you to behave honestly, decently, with due diligence and in good faith at all times with regard to your employees, ex-employees, prospective employees, workers, contractors and customers. If you (or your employees designated with people management responsibility) behave negligently or wilfully in a manner such that any ordinary person would regard it as likely to result in a breach of employment, civil or criminal law, the ETGS cover will be regarded as void and we may terminate any support package in place with minimal notice. There will be no past or future liability to us for losses arising to you as a result of our actions under these circumstances.
4.5. To enjoy the benefits provided by the ETGS you must notify us as soon as you are aware, or we deem that you should reasonably have become aware, of a potential employment issue or dispute arising concerning current, ex or prospective employees.
4.6. The requirement to notify us described in 4.4 includes (but is not limited to) disciplinary action (verbal warning or above); grievances received; dismissals & planned dismissals; retirement disputes or enforced retirement; redundancies; flexible working requests (that won’t be granted); any planned detrimental change to contractual terms (including pay, hours, days, duties or location of work); any proposed deduction from wages; any reported acts of alleged discrimination (however minor) or the receipt of statutory discrimination questionnaires (where discrimination concerns age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership or pregnancy and maternity); claims or observations of bullying, harassment or victimisation; claims or complaints about employment status; plans to return a woman to a role after her maternity that is different to the one she previously held (or on detrimentally different terms and conditions); complaints or issues arising from a woman’s pregnancy, maternity leave (or proposed), or her actual or planned return from maternity leave; concerns over an employee’s legal right to work in the UK etc; equal pay complaints; complaints regarding the alleged withholding of a statutory or contractual right, an intention to acquire a business or service contracts which may result in an inbound TUPE transfer of employees; an intention to sell or dispose of a business or service contract which will result in an outbound TUPE transfer of employees, a request for information made by an employee, ex employee or prospective employee under the Data Protection Regulations.
4.7. To enjoy the benefits provided by the ETGS you must, in addition to complying with other parts of this document, have immediately upon receiving an employment tribunal claim against you, forwarded it to us by secure post or in person. We may reject cover for claims received later than 14 days prior to the response deadline date given in the ET1 form.
Benefits & excesses
4.8. Subject to the conditions above and below the Cover provided under the ETGS includes:
4.9. a. Responding to an employment tribunal on your behalf and preparing for the tribunal hearing including:
- Responding to an ET 1 (tribunal claim form) on the ET3 (response form)
- Preparing the bundle of evidence
- Co-ordinating witness statements
- Preparing witnesses
- Negotiating via ACAS on possible settlements
Excess fees for multiple claims: For the first claim received in any one rolling year of cover there is no excess fee for the service described in this 4.6a. However for a second claim in the same period an excess of £500 + Vat will apply. For a third claim in the same period an excess fee of £750 + Vat will apply and fourth and subsequent claims in the period will be subject to an excess fee based on the actual time expended in managing the response and preparation @ £115 per hour + Vat. Excesses must be paid in advance of our commencing work for you on the claim against you.
4.9. b. Employment tribunal representation:
- Up to 2 days representation at employment tribunal hearings in any one rolling year. We normally instruct qualified and experienced employment tribunal lawyers from an internationally renowned law firm to represent myhrdept.co.uk Premium Plus customers at employment tribunal hearings, pre-hearings or reviews.
Excess fees: Most cases are listed for 1 day and therefore the 2 days inclusive representation cover included is normally more than sufficient. Where more than 2 days representation is required the additional days will be charged to you at a discount against the publicly available fee rates for the nominated lawyer.
Further and specific exclusions
We may at our sole discretion refuse claims under the ETGS in whole or in part, or we may stop claims progressing even if initially accepted if it is apparent either at the outset, or it becomes apparent as the claim progresses that:
4.10. You have a separate employment tribunal insurance policy designed to meet the same or a similar purpose to the benefits intended to be provided by the myhrdept.co.uk ETGS. If present this insurance (sometimes called legal expenses insurance) should be used in preference to the myhrdept.co.uk ETGS. Under these circumstances customers should ensure that they comply with the notification and progression requirements of the insurance company.
4.11. The claim is raised by an employee who is in ongoing employment i.e. is not an applicant for a position, nor has the employee being dismissed. (Should you receive such an application please contact us for assessment of the case and advice. In most cases we will be able to deal with these issues within the normal operation of the myhrdept.co.uk cover but outside of the operation of the ETGS).
4.12. You did not alert us to a developing issue at the outset (4.5 & 4.6 above).
4.13. The claim has arisen from you or one of your employees with people management responsibility behaving in bad faith or seriously negligently (see 4.4 above).
4.14. You fail or have failed to follow our advice when dealing with the issue and we reasonably believe this failure to be a contributory cause of the claim arising, and/or to have resulted in an increased risk of losing the case at tribunal and or of a higher award being made against you than would have been the case had you followed our advice as directed.
4.15. You fail or have failed to follow reasonable settlement or remedial actions recommended by us that probably would have prevented the case progressing to an employment tribunal application or hearing, and as a result of which we would incur additional cost if we accepted the claim.
4.16. The claim arises from your failure to make statutorily or contractually (as defined in your employee’s employment contract) required payments, conditions or benefits, including payments under the national minimum wage, paid holiday entitlement, wages generally and statutory redundancy, maternity, paternity, adoption or sick pay.
4.17. The complaint raised essentially or wholly relates to or stems from an event that occurred within a 6 month period of the beginning of your myhrdept.co.uk subscription, and therefore upon which you were unable to comply with the requirements of 4.5. and 4.6, i.e. you could not have notified us at the outset of the issue because you did not hold a myhrdept.co.uk subscription at the outset of the issue.
4.18. The claim is or is part of a collective claim relating to more than 1 person (a collective action).
4.19. The claim relates to someone who is not classed as an ‘employee’ for the purposes of UK employment legislation.
4.20. You fail, having received fair warning from us, to provide adequate support for us in dealing with your claim e.g. by not making key information, contacts or witnesses available when we reasonably require, or by providing incomplete, inaccurate or inconsistent information (see also clause 4.26).
4.21. We did not receive an employment tribunal application from you in enough time for us to deal properly with it (see 4.7 above) or, where an excess premium applies, if you also have not settled your excess invoice within 7 days of it being issued to you.
Making a claim under the ETGS & your responsibilities
4.22. To start a claim under the Schemes customers should contact us as soon as possible either by email at enquiries@myhrdept.co.uk or by telephone on 07976 976814. You will be contacted normally within 2 working days so that we may obtain the necessary details to compile a case file and begin dealing with your claim.
4.23. If for any reason we do not accept your claim under the Scheme we will contact you directly to discuss the reasons for this.
4.24. Copies of tribunal applications etc should be marked ‘confidential and urgent’ and sent securely to: Bill Larke, Managing Director, at the registered office. You should keep copies of all documents sent.
4.25. Once a claim has been accepted and the case file has been created we will nominate a claims handler to work with you on your claim. This may or may not be your normal HR Account Manager, depending on the skills required for the particular claim. Your claim will be progressed under our management once accepted unless or until the claim is concluded, settled, heard at tribunal or we deem it appropriate to reject the claim under the rules of the ETGS as are defined in this document.
4.26. Although we will, subject to the terms and conditions of the myhrtdept.co.uk ETGS as set out here, act as your representative, you remain legally responsible to the employment tribunal service for the entirety of the case against you. In fulfilling your responsibilities you must in particular:
i. comply and ensure we comply with the dates by which certain actions will be required by the Employment Judge; and
ii. carefully and promptly check any information and statements prepared by us or our agents on your behalf to ensure they are accurate, truthful, consistent and complete, informing us promptly of any errors, inconsistencies or omissions; and
iii. send all information and evidence to us at the outset whether you consider it to be helpful or harmful to your case; and
iv. make available in accordance with our or our agent’s requirements:
i. yourself and others by telephone, email or in person if necessary; and
ii. any and all such additional information we request; and
v. attend and ensure others are available to attend witness preparation meetings when we or our agents require it, and attend the hearing itself; and
vi. ensure that you do not write or send emails internally within your own organisation or externally (including to us) that may be defamatory to the claimant or harmful to the case (it is safest to regard anything you write as being producible evidence); and
vii. not (and instruct others not to) delete or destroy information (including emails (on office and portable devices) personnel file contents, letters, forms, electronic records, text messages etc that relate to the employee and particularly to the complaint made by them; and
viii. ensure that you keep the case and developments confidential at all times.
For the avoidance of doubt, a failure to comply with this clause 4.26, and in particular sub clauses ii. – v, could result in our withdrawing our representation for you and, at our sole discretion, our cancelling the ETGS scheme benefits & cover with respect to the case against you.
Complaints under the myhrdept.co.uk Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme
4.27. If a customer has reason to feel aggrieved at actions taken or proposed by myhrdept.co.uk. under this policy they may submit a written complaint to Catherine Larke, Director, at the registered office.
4.28. The complaint will normally be investigated within 28 days of receipt and a response issues to the complainant within a further 14 days of the conclusion of the investigation of the complaint.
Limits of our liability – general statement
4.29. Our liability to myhrdept.co.uk subscribers is limited to that expressly described here under the terms of Employment Tribunal Guarantee Scheme (ETGS), Except as expressly stated here we accept no liability financial or otherwise for loss caused to you as a result of your using directly or indirectly the services or advice offered by us to you either via myhrdept.co.uk or via any other medium or mechanism used by us, whether or not such losses arose or were contributed to by our error, inaccuracies or omissions.
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