Unfair dismissal claims - changes clarified

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has confirmed that the extension of the qualifying period to 2 years will only apply to employees who start working for their employer on or after the 6 April 2012. Anyone who started to work for their current employer before that date will not be affected by the change, and may still bring an unfair dismissal claim after 1 year's continuous service.

This means that employees with 18 months service at 6 April 2012 will still be able to bring a claim. Similarly anyone who has less than a year's service at 6th April 2012 will still only have to accrue a year's service before being able to bring a claim.

Note however that there is no qualifying period to bring a claim for discrimination or whistleblowing and it is possible that claims in these categories may increase - the Equality Act (2010) widened the categories of ‘protected characteristics’ (for the purposes of discrimination claims) and therefore the scope of discrimination legislation.