I've never taped a meeting in my life, or had it requested. I would always have someone taking notes, would advise the employee in question to either take notes or have their accompanying union rep or colleague do so, and then I would ensure that the official notes of the meeting were agreed by the employee in question.
There is no limit of 5 days or any other limit to the amount of unpaid emergency dependents' leave a parent can take for a child, see workingfamilies factsheet here, so you shouldn't be disciplined for that if that's what you are doing.
But if it's illness you can't just take the duration of the illness off. Emergency leave is one or two days maximum so if your child is ill longer than that you are expected to use those days to sort out alternative childcare arrangements.
In terms of the basic minimum disciplinary procedure, the only things actually written down in law is the statutory disciplinary procedure which consists of 3 steps
-a statement in writing of what it is the employee is alleged to have done
-a meeting to discuss the situation, and
-the right of appeal
there is new legislation due next year which will remove these but at the moment they are the only steps that are required by law.
In terms of good practice, that's slightly different. Most company policies would go over and above the statutory basic procedure, but they don't actually have to. Neither is it stated anywhere who should hear a disciplinary or that it can be taped. Although if there is a disability issue which means someone would be disadvantaged by not having it taped, then that would be a reasonable request. Otherwise no.
Ilive you sound very knowledgeable about the policies and practices where you work, and that's probably all you need as a union rep in one workplace, but I do get concerned when people come on here saying an employer 'must' do this and that, when that's not the case. Several times I've seen people run back to their manager because someone has said something along those lines on here, and demanded a right which they don't have.
morninggirl sorry this has taken the conversation away from your problem. As callme says, read the letter and see what it says, and if you are concerned or want to discuss what it says and what it means, do come back.
Have a read of the link about emergency dependents' leave. Directgov site is down currently which I'd normally link to but the workingfamilies factsheet on time off which I've linked to is good as well.
The other important thing to check is that your employer has followed their own policy correctly, so have a read of that if you can as well.