Offer & acceptance - Staff contracts

The law sets out very clearly what must be contained in the offer of a staff job, says Mary Evans, and neither side has anything to fear

Alegal contract exists once a job offer is made, so the formal letter of appointment that a nursery manager sends to a new staff member must cover the basic details of the employment and should include the proviso that the offer is subject to satisfactory references.

The contract of employment underpins the entire relationship between employer and employee. This is why it is so important that its terms and conditions are clearly spelled out and understood by both sides before it is signed.

Tricia Pritchard, professional officer with the Professional Association of Nursery Nurses, is concerned that many young first-time employees joining nurseries do not dare insist upon being issued with contracts or question their terms before signing. She says, 'Nursery nurses are often reluctant to challenge their employer over their contracts because they are worried they might be blacklisted and branded as troublemakers and that it will affect their prospects.

'We don't often have problems with contracts in local authority nurseries, and if we do it is usually due to an oversight which is soon rectified. But there can be problems in the private sector. Some employers are issuing contracts stating that if the numbers fall below a certain level the girls' jobs will be affected and their hours cut. In other cases, people just don't issue contracts.

'I think it would help if at college the students were taught not just about the job of childcare but about all that is involved in being employees,' Tricia adds. 'We always advise nursery nurses to insist on a written contract before the commencement of employment.'
According to the Department of Trade and Industry, 'The contract need not be written down (although it must be if it is a contract of apprenticeship). Its terms can be written, oral, implied or a mixture of all three.' Implied terms might include those that are too obvious to be expressly agreed - for example, a term that the employee must accept reasonable instructions from the employer.

However, under the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 and the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993, employers must furnish new staff with a written statement of the terms and conditions of the employment within two months of the start of the employment (see box).
Given the nature of the work it is also wise to include issues in the conditions of service such as the requirement for staff to report suspected child abuse, the importance of confidentiality, the duty to report notifiable illnesses, and the prohibition of the use of drink or drugs at work.

The employer/employee relationship is two-way and the nursery should provide written details of its personnel policies covering not just what it requires of its staff, but what it will provide for them, such as equal pay for work of equal value.

A spokesman for the Department of Education and Employment explains, 'A number of statutory rights apply to employees as soon as they start work. They include protection against unlawful deductions from wages, adverse treatment on grounds of sex, race or disability and dismissal for seeking to enforce statutory employment rights.' These rights can be covered in the nursery's personnel policies.