The Employment Rights Act 1996 sets out six potentially fair reasons for dismissing an employee.

These are: a reason relating to the employees capability or qualifications; conduct; redundancy; that the employee could not continue working in that position without contravening some statutory provision; ‘some other substantial reason’ that would justify dismissal; and retirement.

If the employer can establish that one of the six reasons applies, it must then go on to show that it acted reasonably in dismissing the employee for that reason. In addition, there are a number of reasons for dismissals which are deemed to be ‘automatically unfair’.

Employees seeking to bring a claim for unfair dismissal will normally require 12 months service, although there are exceptions. We can assist employers in relation to all aspects of a dismissal.