How your employer should inform and consult you about workplace matters

Requesting a formal agreement

Eligibility

To make a request for an information and consultation agreement, your business or organisation must have at least 50 employees and:

  • for businesses with 750 or more employees – at least 2% of employees make the request
  • for businesses with fewer than 750 employees – at least 15 people make the request

Individual requests from employees

Individual requests from employees are counted together towards the total, if they're all within a 6-month period.

Individual requests made before 6 April 2020

The eligibility requirements changed on 6 April 2020, so it's easier to make a valid request.

If an employee made an individual request before that date, it's still counted towards the total as long as all the following apply:

  • 1 or more of the individual requests was made on or after 6 April 2020
  • all individual requests were made within a 6-month period
Example
A company has 750 employees. Before 6 April 2020, 4% of the company's employees had made individual requests for an information and consultation agreement.
 
Before 6 April this number would not have been enough for the requests to be valid. This is because the law required 10% of the company's employees to have made requests.
 
Since 6 April this number is enough for the requests to be valid, as long as at least 1 request is made from 6 April onwards.

Finding out how many employees are in your workplace

You can write to your employer to ask how many people they employ.

You can complain to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) if:

  • your employer refuses to provide the number of employees
  • you think the number they've given you is wrong

Download the complaint form on GOV.UK.

How to make your request

It's best to make your request in writing to your employer.

If you do not want to do this (for example, you do not want your employer to know you're making the request), you can make your request in writing to the CAC.

The CAC can handle your request in an anonymous way, if you prefer.

Your employer can start informing and consulting with you without an agreement, or a request for one.

If you're making a request directly to your employer

Include the following:

  • the date you're making the request
  • your name and the names of any other employees included in your request
  • that you're making a request to 'negotiate an information and consultation agreement' 

If you're making a request through the CAC

Email enquiries@cac.gov.uk with the following:

  • the date you're making the request
  • the names and signatures of all employees making the request, including any eligible individual employee requests
  • an employee point of contact  
  • your employer's name
  • your employer's address – this should be their head or registered office, or the main place they do business

The CAC will tell you and the employer how many requests have been made, without revealing the names of the employees.

Central Arbitration Committee
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX
Telephone: 0330 109 3610  

An employer could also ask the CAC to decide whether:

  • requests are valid
  • any valid agreements already exist
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