Question

Should the council's grievance procedures and policy for employees be on the parish website?

Answer 1

Why not? They contain no confidential information and show that you are a professional employer and take your responsibilities seriously. A potential future employee might be looking for evidence such as this before applying and this would set you apart from those councils that continue to operate Dickensian HR policies.

Comments

i fear we are Dickensian as Councillors do not have sight of this policy either.

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A policy isn't a policy until it has been agreed by the whole council. The model standing orders set out the items to be included on the agenda for the annual meeting of the council, including:-
"5 j (xix) Review of the Council's employment policies and procedures" so these documents should be reviewed annually by the whole council.

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Thank you for highlighting this point,  our Policies are reviewed by a committee so did not realise that as a Councillor I had to be involved/notified in all of these. I shall have to check if these Standing Orders have been followed.

Answer 2

Yes.  Anybody is entitled to see it and it would be a bad reflection on the council if somebody had to submit a FOI request or make an appointment to view it at the Council offices.

Answer 3

The answers given are interesting as we don't publish the parish councils grievance and disciplinary policy on our website as it is an internal policy.  We also don't publish the sickness and absence policy, lone working policy or other such documents that relate to staff procedures.  I am not sure why we would need to and why a member of the public would ask for this information.... I understand if they wanted to raise a complaint about the council but that is covered by the complaints policy which is published...