LPC Employment and HR Resources
Published on: 26th August 2025 | Updated on: 26th August 2025
This section supports LPCs on a range of employment law matters. It is intended mainly for LPC Chairs, Vice-Chairs, Treasurers and Chief Officers and contains confidential legal advice notes and template documents. The advice and documents have been drafted specifically to cater for LPCs by Clyde & Co LLP, who are specialists in providing employment law advice, and funded by Community Pharmacy England for all LPCs in England to use freely and adopt.
As well as having business as usual templates including a staff handbook with all policies and employment procedures, contract of employment, consultancy agreements and a settlement agreement, it covers specific advice for LPC members in relation to managing the risk around liability of individuals on the committee due to unincorporated association status.
Whilst materials have been specifically drafted for LPCs, they are inevitably generic in nature. Where specific issues arise, specialist legal advice is required and generic documents of this nature may need to be amended and/or a different approach taken depending on the specific circumstances. Further advice can be obtained from Clyde and Co LLP.
The section of the LPC area should not be routinely accessed by LPC staff, without permission of their employer first.
LPC and Employment Matters
If your LPC has employees or engages workers through consultancy, your committee is deemed to be responsible for discharging all the duties of an employer. Due to the legal status of an LPC being an unincorporated association the organisation doesn’t offer ‘limited liability’ to those governing the organisation in the same way that a company does, meaning claims could be brought against committee members
It is therefore important that LPCs have effective controls, governance, and ensure proper procedures are followed, especially in the areas of employment law and finance. These were two of the areas also highlighted in the Wright Review evidence base as needing improvement and the Review Steering Group (RSG) proposed solutions to help, including actions that start to standardized good practice around HR and finance.
There are certain matters that you cannot delegate and must remain with the full committee, typically approval and adoption of key employment policies, terms and conditions and policies around equality and diversity and approach to remuneration and reward.
Key questions/consideration for LPC committee members:
- Are committee members aware of the core support provided to all LPCs and when were your polices, and terms last reviewed? Are you using the LPC network standard documents, if not why?
- Does the committee have access to HR advice and guidance, can you access it if the need arises?
- Discuss with the whole committee your responsibility as an employer and agree principles for HR advice and support –and link to budget setting process. Subscription model for advice beyond the core templates
This section includes bespoke advice notes on the potential liability of individuals on the committee on employment matters due to unincorporated association status (this should be shared with all existing and new members of the LPC committee), advice on employment status and guidance to help LPCs undertake an annual salary review.
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GENERAL GUIDANCE
To support the LPCs undertake the salary review process is conducted diligently, Community Pharmacy England has helped to gather intelligence available from the established network of Chairs and Treasurers to consider the approach of other LPCs, as well as wider market conditions. LPCs Treasurers and Chairs have access to the outputs of the LPC Finance and HR Survey information and it can be requested from the LPC Support Team email: lpc.support@cpe.org.uk
In addition, from the Wright Review, carried out in 2020 said:
Referenced to range of staffing and some analysis of spending by LPC, including on staff costs. The review also touched on the role that benchmarking with this type of data might play in future.
The review also said “the breadth of expertise and responsibility of the CO role however is such that the salary would be anticipated to be a senior management level.
Pro-rata salaries of up to and beyond £100k were cited on a number of occasions with questions raised as to whether this really provided value for money for contractors (inflation needs to be considered, amongst other things, since the review was conducted in 2020).
Business as usual templates including a staff handbook with all policies and employment procedures, contract of employment, consultancy agreements and a settlement Agreement.
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KEY TEMPLATES
The section is split into advice note and a full suite of template documents to help support the grievance process and builds on the staff handbook.
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GRIVANCE PROCESS
This section is split into advice note and a full suite of template documents to help support the disciplinary process and builds on the staff handbook.
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DISCIPLINARY PROCESS
A Bespoke advice note to LPC’s on “Rights and Risks relating to restructuring and redundancies in LPC’s” including advice relating to an overview of the requirements and process of a fair and non-discriminatory individual redundancy consultation (including common pitfalls and timescales) including how employees can be supported proactively and employment status (and associated rights for each) – who should be included in any redundancy process? This also includes resources on TUPE relating to LPC changes.
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TUPE AND RESTURCTURE
REDUNDANCY PROCESS
This section contains a guidance note on the duty to prevent sexual harassment, together with a list of factors for LPCs to consider when producing a risk assessment, a template risk assessment table (with worked example), a table of measures to consider taking to mitigate risks and a climate survey (which some larger LPCs might want to use).
Taken together, these documents should enable LPCs to consider their specific risk factors and take steps to reduce the risk of claims arising in the first place or, if they do arise, to mitigate the risk they are held to be in breach of the new duty.
It will require LPC to consider the specifics of their working environment; working through the guidance note and supporting documents, will allow the production of an appropriate risk assessment and begin to take the necessary steps to address any risks identified.
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Workforce environment and duty to prevent sexual harassment
This section includes an advice note on the Employment Rights Bill as a heads-up about the changes ahead for all employers. To support LPCs further on this, during 2025/26 financial year
with the support of our legal advisors, will be reviewing and updating the template contracts, policies, procedures and the staff handbook that are provided to all LPCs. Should any LPC require any specific or further guidance or support in respect of navigating the changes being introduced by the Bill, this can be obtained from Clyde & Co LLP in the usual way.
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Latest Updates to the Employment Rights Bill and Amendment (April 2025)
Proposal for employment advice
This section is home to historical briefing and training materials for reference only. The latest versions of policies and procedures and key documents should always be referred to.
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Previous training materials
For more information on this topic please email comms.team@cpe.org.uk
