Martin Brewer, is a Partner with the employment team of Mills & Reeve

Karen, the law on notice periods is pretty straightforward. You are required to give the notice set out in your written contract PROVIDED that is equal to, or more than the statutory notice period (see below).

If you don't have a written contract, or if you do but it doesn't say anything about notice periods then you are required to give 'reasonable' notice which, again, can't be shorter than the statutory minimum.

So what is the statutory minimum notice period?

That is set out in section 86 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. This says that if an employee employed for:

• More than one month then they must get one week's notice.
• Between one year's service and twelve years they get one week's notice for each complete year of service.
• More than twelve years they get 12 week's notice.
  As you can see, there is no minimum notice period for an employee with less than one month's service.

Martin can be contacted at: martin.brewer@mills-reeve.com

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