Section 14: Confidentiality of negotiations before termination of employment
84.This section inserts a new section 111A into the ERA 1996. The aim is to facilitate the use of settlement agreements as a means of ending the employment relationship.
85.Subsection (1) of section 111A provides that an offer to terminate the employment relationship on agreed terms is not admissible as evidence in any subsequent unfair dismissal case. This applies to offers made by either the employer or employee. It applies to the offer itself and also to the content of any negotiations about the offer (see subsection (2)).
86.Subsection (3) of section 111A provides that the confidentiality provided by subsection (1) does not apply in cases where the employee claims to have been dismissed for an automatically unfair reason. The automatically unfair reasons for dismissal are set out in existing primary and secondary legislation and a number of the reasons are listed in sections 98B to 105 of the ERA 1996.
87.Subsection (4) of section 111A provides that where the employer or employee behaved improperly in making or negotiating the offer the tribunal may consider this as evidence in an unfair dismissal claim. This is intended to mirror the test of ‘unambiguous impropriety’ which has been established in case law as an exception to the common law principle of without prejudice. It is also expected that a statutory Code of Practice will be issued by ACAS giving guidance as what amounts to improper behaviour in this context.
88.Subsection (5) of section 111A provides that the offer of settlement is not admissible as evidence when the tribunal turns to deciding whether to award costs or expenses at the end of a case (costs are known in Scotland as expenses), unless the party which made the offer stated otherwise when doing so. So it will still be possible to make a settlement offer on the basis that it will be admissible when determining costs or expenses in any subsequent claim.