Fair dismissal in the UK refers to the lawful termination of an employee’s contract for one of five potentially fair reasons for dismissal. These reasons are:
- Capability: Dismissal due to the employee’s inability to perform their job duties to the required standard, including poor performance or lack of qualifications.
- Conduct: Dismissal for reasons related to the employee’s behaviour, such as persistent poor time keeping, persistent absenteeism, attitude problems or misconduct (such as theft, fraud, violence, sexual harassment, gross insubordination, any form of discrimination).
- Redundancy: Dismissal due to an employee’s contract being terminated by their employer because the requirement to perform work of a particular kind has diminished considerably or ceased to exist at their normal place of work.
- Statutory bans: Dismissal if continuing employment would breach statutory regulations, for example, a driver who loses their licence for a year because of a drink-driving conviction will not be able to undertake driving duties for their employer during that period of time.
- Some Other Substantial Reason (SOSR): Dismissal for a reason that does not fit into the other categories but is substantial and justifiable, such as a conflict of interest. Examples of SOSR include: Dismissal following a failure to agree new contractual terms, third party pressure dismissals e.g. a client refuses to have the employee on site, personality dismissals e.g. where employees can no longer work together and both parties cannot remain in the business, or, dismissal for an ETO reason under TUPE.
