Update folks. The company responded to our appeal and upheld the dismissal. They admitted that dismissal with immediate effect was not actually correct and have moved his dismissal date back by 4 weeks to try and correct that error and paid him 4 weeks in lieu. They admit in writing that he had received no 'formal' warnings but because of his short time in employment they sometimes use a more informal approach. Unbelievable. They seem to be saying because your 19 you do not get the same treatment as an older employee who's been here for years. Is that age discrimination. For employees with relatively short periods of employment such as yours, we often have to take difficult decisions without a more formal disciplinary procedure being applied. He has a full breakdown of the disciplinary process in his contract that has been totally ignored. On giving only 15 minutes notice of the initial hearing they say, Having reviewed the events of 11th February 2016 prior to your dismissal, I would agree that it is far from ideal to be only given 15 minutes notice of the disciplinary hearing and Mr. ...... would have liked to have afforded you more notice but there was a particularly difficult set of time constraints at the time related to the difficult financial situation in which the Company finds itself. However, I do not believe that more notice would have made any difference to the outcome. It continued, Your comments about the length of the notes are taken on board but the notes are not a verbatim record of the meeting but a summary of the events The final points they make are, Having considered your representations in the round, I want to point out that the decision to terminate your employment was taken only after serious consideration by Mr. ...... and in circumstances where there was little margin to allow further opportunities to improve. Had the circumstances been different then it perhaps would have been possible to allow you more time but regrettably that was not the case. It is disappointing from all perspectives that you were unable to continue your apprenticeship with us but you will be aware that the Company is also in the process of making long-serving employees redundant and therefore I am not in a position to overturn Mr. ....... decision in the circumstances. I have spoken to ACAS today because we have to go through them before considering a tribunal. I have suggested i think they may be guilty of Breach of contract and maybe even age discrimination. Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

Thanks Becky.Will await the final decision on the appeal and take it from there.

Thanks Emmzzi. i think it must be ASCLA although i cant see where it says it is governed by the law of england and wales. Maybe omitting this technicality could mean it must be seen as common law apprenticeship? It also says, Dismissing an apprentice Where the arrangement is terminated by the employer, or terminates automatically at the end of a fixed term, there will be a dismissal for the purposes of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and therefore the potential for an unfair dismissal claim exists. Of course the time he has worked (16months) may preclude this.

Yes i believe it was/is. The chap from the college was in the week before my son was sacked. he had come in to say he had gained his level 2 Qualification.

Hi My 19 year old son was sacked for poor performance 16 months into his 3 year apprenticeship. He was given 15 minutes warning of his disciplinary hearing and no evidence in advance. No notes were taken and his companion in the hearing was told to make no comment. No notes were taken and when i asked for a copy of the notes they should have recorded they cobbled together a 9 sentence document (spread over 3 A4 pages) as a supposed record of a 20 minute meeting. It takes 1 minute to read. My son was stunned as he had received no verbal warnings and thought things were ok. 2 days later when his wages were due the company paid half his wages. When i called up they said the money was just not there and everyone had received half their wage. He received the balance a week later. In the following week 5 other members of staff were made redundant. It became quite clear that he was removed because they thought he'd be easy to get out because hes just an apprentice. Obviously the company is having financial problems and reducing the wage bill. We wrote and asked for evidence of his poor performance as the phrase itself is ambiguous and the MD wrote back saying they had no more evidence and disagreed the dismissal reason was ambiguous. 4 days later the same MD chaired my sons appeal and will decide if his dismissal is fair. We have appealed because they did not follow ACAS procedure in the initial hearing and he had no warnings before instant dismissal. Awaiting decision. Any help please, we are desperate. Can he go to a tribunal with only 16 months service if not are any other avenues open to us

Hi This is our present mortgage company. We have 4 years stilll to go on the mortgage.

I have tried many times to find info on arrears administration fees charged by my building society. I have seen many posts asking if these charges can be reclaimed. Well they CAN so go for it. The woolwich (owned by Barclays) have just caved in and are knocking £3600 of arrears charges imposed over the last 6 years. I asked for the list of charges in Feb, they put me off 3 times so i wrote to the Financial Ombudsman, told them the woolwich were messing me about and asked them to sort it. Then the woolwich finally provied the list of charges but said they were set out in our terms and conditions when we took out the mortgage. I basically told them to sod off trying to intimidate me and sort it out through the ombudsman. That was 2 weeks ago. Today i got a letter from the ombudsman saying they want to offer the full amount. Don't take any crap off these bully boy banks, print out the template letters and if they mess you about go to the ombudsman. I know you can go to court but avoid the stress of that and let the FO challenge these ILLEGAL penalty charges.