Employment documents checker

What your result means

The three counts are deliberately not a single score. Legally required and missing is the list to act on: every item on it is a duty that already applies to you, with the cost of the gap stated beside it. Legally required and in place is there so you can see what you have already done rather than only what you have not. Strongly advisable is the set of things no statute forces on you but which decide how a disagreement goes — a full contract rather than the bare statutory statement, a non-contractual handbook, working time and holiday records.

Almost nothing on the required list produces a fine that arrives by post. Employers’ liability insurance and the ICO fee are the exceptions; everything else costs you later, and only if someone brings a claim. The missing paperwork is what turns a defensible decision into an indefensible one, and s.38 of the Employment Act 2002 then adds two to four weeks’ pay on top of whatever was already awarded. That is why an employer with no complaints and no documents feels entirely safe right up until the week they are not.

What to do first

1. The written statement, for anyone who has not had one. It is the only duty here with a day-one deadline, it covers workers as well as employees, and it is the cheapest breach on the list to close.
2. Employers’ liability insurance, if the certificate is not accessible. This is the one item that is a criminal offence in its own right rather than a weakness in a future case.
3. The disciplinary and grievance procedure. Not because anyone reads it, but because the Acas Code uplift is applied to the whole award, so it multiplies every other mistake you make afterwards.
4. The anti-harassment policy and the risk assessment. The duty tightens in October 2026, and the evidence that you took steps has to exist before the incident, not be assembled after it.
5. Then the advisable list, in your own time. It is genuinely optional. It is also where confidentiality, ownership of what your staff create, and post-termination restrictions live.

What the law actually requires

Most employers know they need ‘a contract’. Very few can name what the statute requires, and the gap between the two is where tribunal claims are won. This checker works from the primary legislation rather than from custom and practice.

The written statement of particulars

Section 1 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 requires a written statement of particulars to be given on or before the first day of employment, in a single document, to workers as well as employees. Both of those points changed on 6 April 2020 and a great many contract templates in circulation still predate them.

The statement must cover the names of both parties, the start date, the date continuous employment began, pay and how it is calculated, pay intervals, hours including which days and whether hours vary, holiday and holiday pay in enough detail to calculate accrued pay on termination, sick pay, any other paid leave, pensions, any other benefits, notice on both sides, job title or a description of the work, whether the job is temporary and for how long, any probationary period and its conditions and duration, place of work, any relevant collective agreements, overseas working, and training entitlements including any training the worker must complete at their own cost.

Section 3 adds a note to the statement itself: your disciplinary rules, the procedure applying to disciplinary and dismissal decisions, and the person a worker applies to over a grievance and how. There is no small-employer exemption from this — the old exemption for employers with fewer than twenty employees was repealed.

Disciplinary and grievance procedure

The Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures is not a statute, but s.207A of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 lets a tribunal increase an award by up to 25% where an employer has unreasonably failed to follow it — and reduce it by up to 25% where the employee has. On a mid-sized unfair dismissal award that uplift is frequently the largest single line in the judgment.

The things that are not about documents at all

• Employers’ liability insurance — at least £5 million of cover, with the certificate accessible to employees. Being uninsured is a criminal offence carrying a level 4 fine, currently up to £2,500, for each day you were required to be insured and were not.
• A written health and safety policy — required by s.2(3) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 once you employ five or more people. Under five you are excepted from writing it down, but not from any of the underlying duties.
• Automatic enrolment — assess every member of staff, enrol those who qualify, and file a declaration of compliance. For 2026/27 the earnings trigger is £10,000 and the qualifying earnings band runs £6,240 to £50,270.
• Right to work checks — done before employment starts and recorded properly, they give you a statutory excuse against a civil penalty. Done afterwards, they do not.
• Data protection — a staff privacy notice separate from your customer one, and the ICO annual data protection fee.

Three dates already in the diary

The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and is being commenced in phases. Three of them change the calculus for a small employer, and all three are on the government’s published implementation timeline, last updated on 16 July 2026.

• 1 October 2026 — the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims rises from three months to six. Twice as long for a disgruntled leaver to decide to file, and twice as long for your paperwork to have to stand up.
• October 2026 — the duty to prevent sexual harassment becomes a duty to take all reasonable steps, and employers become liable again for harassment of their staff by third parties such as customers and suppliers.
• 1 January 2027 — the unfair dismissal qualifying period drops from two years to six months, and the cap on the compensatory award is removed. The two-year grace period that has quietly protected badly documented employers for a decade largely goes.

None of this makes documents urgent on its own. What makes them urgent is that the cheapest moment to fix an employment document is before anybody is unhappy, and the most expensive moment is after.

Required, advisable, and the difference

The checker separates the two deliberately. A written statement is required; a full employment contract is not, but the statement leaves out confidentiality, intellectual property, post-termination restrictions and deductions from final pay — all the clauses that protect the business rather than the employee. A staff handbook is not required either, but keeping policies in a non-contractual handbook is what lets you update them without renegotiating every contract you have.

What it costs to put right

An employment starter pack is a fixed £895 +VAT: the documents a first hire needs, built around how your business actually operates rather than downloaded and renamed. HR policies with a staff handbook are £1,495 +VAT. A single contract or policy you already have and want looked at is a contract review at £249 +VAT. Set against the alternative, the £200 to £350 +VAT an hour commonly quoted for this work buys between roughly two and a half and four and a half hours for the price of the starter pack.

If staff questions arrive continuously — a grievance, a probation that is not working, a request to change hours — the subscription is the cheaper shape. Virtual HR Manager is £499 +VAT a month on a twelve-month agreement and includes the employment contracts, handbook and core policies inside the fee rather than as a separate bill. Business Legal is £249 +VAT a month and Legal Foundations £49 +VAT a month. The fixed-fee work page carries the full list, and anything outside it is scoped and priced in writing before work starts.

What Buzz Legal is not is a firm of solicitors, and it is not regulated by the SRA. Employment documents, policies and day-to-day HR questions are non-reserved work and sit squarely inside what Buzz does. Where a matter needs reserved work — tribunal proceedings, for instance — it is carried out by RHF Solicitors, authorised and regulated by the SRA (no. 324115), and you are told that before you spend anything. Settlement agreements are worth knowing about separately: one does not bind the employee unless they have taken advice from a relevant independent adviser, so that route always involves someone outside your business.