Help with employment investigation/disciplinary

[Jinglebells]

I was under an investigation in Jan of this year for an incident that wasn’t my fault, as a result of the company taking 2 months to call me in for an investigation meeting and then not giving an outcome, by march I wasn’t able to continue working and suffered a mental breakdown




my role is over at the end of the year and I feel they are setting me up to try and dismiss me without paying my redundancy (8 years with clean record)




my questions are




if it’s decided after and incident an investigation is needed what is the time frame that’s considered reasonable for it to have been incepted, conducted and then reported the findings back to the employee?




What would be considered a break of procedure in the timings of this? There’s no criminal aspect to it and it’s something that could be investigated in a matter of days as it’s a simple case, and an outcome reached but this didn’t happen.










if the investigation is concluded what’s the time frame for starting a disciplinary hearing and does it have a “clock” when the investigation has been closed? I’ve been off sick but informed them when I went off they can communicate with me in writing whilst off sick as attending site would cause me further stress when I raised there was things being done in bad faith and this hasn’t been investigated




if it’s considered to be done in bad faith (I raised this at the meeting with proof, then it’s now my understanding the meeting should have been stopped whilst the claims I made were investigated, this didn’t happen and the meeting proceeded




I’ve had a conversation with another employee in authority that’s made me aware when I went off sick the investigation was closed and would escalate to disciplinary, again this has caused me further stress as the company has made no contact with me at all since I went off, this again further doubts my trust as no person in authority should be telling an employee stuff on a non official basis although at least it’s given me an indication of there intent but as a result caused me more stress.




the company haven’t officially spoken with me or communicated with me at all, but I expect a letter asking me to attend a hearing will be the next step, this could be 5 months getting on for after the fact, the stress of having to wait for doom as implied by a person of authority on a non official basis isn’t doing me any good and I would like it to be resolved and return back to work to work until my role is over but don’t feel I can with how the company has treated me or function in the workplace, I’m a single mother of 2 and struggle as it is without the additional stress this is causing me.




I just feel there looking to dismiss me to avoid paying a substantial sum of redundancy later in the year, as I wouldn’t be the first and probably won’t be the last.







Apologies if it’s a bit rambled above




My questions are




After an incident what’s a reasonable time frame to conduct an investigation in a non complicated case?




How long after the incident is reasonable to question the offending employee, is a few weeks to a month considered unreasonable




When the investigations been concluded what’s the time frame for notifying the employee of the findings and whether the case will move to escalate to a hearing?




If the company is causing the employee stress by not communicating any of the above with employee is that breaking procedures?




Given the current situation what can I do to bring this to a close without them trying to dismiss me unfairly as I have no faith the company will follow any rules and can’t deal with the stress of being fired unfairly and having to pursue that after.







any help or guidance would be much appreciated

[ULA]

In answer to your questions as set out at the end of your post.

1. The ACAS guidelines are that if an incident at work needs investigation then the employer should "act promptly". Leaving it too long will mean that recollections of the incident may fade and affect the accuracy.

2. Given my answer to the above questions I would suggest a month is likely to be too long but without know the circumstances of the incident it is only an opinion.

3. Once an investigation has been concluded then the finding will need to be provided to the person who will make the final decision about what if any further action is to be taken. They may need some time to review this and come to a decision but once they do then the person under investigation should be notified as soon as possible of the outcome.

4. You will need to check specifically your company's procedure. However the ACAS guidelines on conducting investigations do point out that the health and welfare of staff involved, which includes the person under investigation need to be considered.

5. I would suggest that maybe as an initial approach email your company HR if you have such a function to ask if there is a timescale on when the investigation will be concluded as it seems to have gone on for a while and the situation is causing you a great deal of stress.