Information and consultation flow chart

This flow chart highlights the various situations where you may be legally obliged to inform and consult with a variety of employee representatives. 

Overview of main obligations

Health and safety: You must consult with employees or their representatives on health and safety matters. Safety representatives may be appointed or elected, or you can consult directly if your workplace is small. 

Redundancy: As well as the duty to consult with individual employees selected for redundancy, where 20+ redundancies are proposed within 90 days at one establishment, you must consult with appropriate representatives of those who may be affected by the proposed dismissals or by measures taken in connection with them.

TUPE: There are duties on both the transferor and transferee to inform and consult with the appropriate representatives of affected employees. For TUPE transfers that take place on or after 1 July 2024, small businesses with fewer than 50 employees or businesses of any size that are undertaking a transfer of fewer than ten employees may inform and consult with the affected employees directly, provided there are no appropriate representatives already in place and they haven’t invited any of the affected employees to elect employee representatives.

Agreements under ICE Regulations: If you have 50+ employees, you are generally required to inform and consult IC representatives on an ongoing basis about potential measures and decisions that will affect the employment prospects of the employees they represent and which are likely to lead to substantial changes in the workplace. 

Occupational and personal pension schemes: Similarly, if you have 50+ employees, you are also required to inform and consult before making certain changes to occupational pension schemes and personal pensions which the employer contributes to.