Grievance appeal?

[Soporalt]

My friend has worked in admin for the NHS for 10 years. She can be a bit flakey, but tells me she was the subject of a grievance complaint a few months ago. She'd complained about bullying by her new line manager in what was meant to be an open one to one discussion (with someone else) about morale etc. It sounded like the grievance had been upheld, but no further action is being taken. She wants to appeal, but has been told you can't appeal grievance decisions. Is that right? Or does it depend on the employer's procedures?

Also, she's been given no work at all to do for months. Can she argue her role is redundant/force a settlement? (I have all sorts of issues with public money being wasted in this way, but didn't mention that!)

Sorry, I don't fully follow what's gone on here. So your friend, her line manager and a third person had a meeting about morale issues. After this someone complained/raised a grievance, who was that, your friend or the line manager or both? And what were they complaining about, whose behaviour was (allegedly) bad?

The person who raised the grievance can appeal if they are not satisfied with the outcome, but other people involved can't as it's not their grievance. So if person A raises a grievance about the behaviour of person B, and person B is found to be at fault but no action was taken, person A could appeal if there's something they think should happen (mediation or them being moved to a different work area or whatever) but person B can't. Person B could potentially raise a separate grievance of their own if they feel they've been discriminated against or if they were disciplined or put on a formal performance improvement plan as a result they could appeal that decision. But if the organisation has decided that although person B was at fault no formal action of any kind has been taken, that kind of indicates the organisation thinks it's really not a very serious matter at all, nothing will be on person B's 'record', so my recommendation would probably be person B just lets it go and moves on with their life even if they don't agree they were at fault.

The redundancy/settlement question, no she can't really force a redundancy unless the organisation agrees her role is no longer required (and many NHS orgs prefer to keep people on in effectively non-existent jobs and hope they leave of their own accord than pay the very generous NHS redundancy terms), a settlement maybe as a result of the ongoing dispute but these are really hard to get in a public sector organisation (less so private sector) as treasury approval would have to be sought and they only tend to agree if things are at the point with an employment tribunal would definitely be lost which is a very high threshold. It's not illegal to employ someone and give them very little work to do at the end of the day, annoying/stupid but (likely) not in breach of contract, could amount to constructive dismissal potentially but CD is really quite hard to prove and she'd have to resign then claim, so trusts won't be jumping to preemptively settle just on the threat of doing that unless there's a really strong case.

Is she in a union? I'd take advice from them in the first instance, if not then ACAS or an employment solicitor (she may have legal cover through her home insurance for employment disputes)? But realistically if things between her and her manager have deteriorated to this extent the most sensible thing is probably to cut her losses and look for another job either internally or with another trust, if she's an experienced administrator there are usually lots of NHS jobs around, maybe check community care/mental health trusts as well as hospitals (unless she's in rural Cornwall with only one trust in 1000 miles or something)? If she really wants to stay in her current organisation it might be a better approach to see if she can be formally or informally 'redeployed' to a different work area?

That's really helpful, thank you.

You've understood correctly. Friend F had a meeting with third party T (this was part of a general exercise of meetings with staff to check on morale etc). F told T she'd been bullied by new line manager L. Somehow this got back to L and she raised a grievance against F. I understand what you say about appeals.

I've only ever worked in the private sector in an organisation that was mostly pretty professional and effective on this kind of stuff, so I'm horrified to read what you say about settlements etc in the NHS. She may well give up and resign, but she's been using her time to do another activity that she was doing before to supplement her income. Not employment or anything remotely similar to the NHS job. So putting aside the criminal waste of public money, she should just take the salary indefinitely and crack on with her sideline business.

If it was a few months ago she's missed the deadline, ACAS recommend 5 days from original outcome to appeal.