What must employers tell unions in collective bargaining?

If you stack shelves, clean wards or work nights in a care home, “there is no money for a pay rise” can end the discussion before it starts. Your recognised union has a right to request information for bargaining. You do not have to take management’s figures on trust.

Who can request bargaining information?

The right in section 181 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 belongs to an independent union recognised for collective bargaining. It applies to the subjects and groups of workers covered by that recognition. An employer-controlled staff association cannot use it. Recognition for consultation alone does not establish a right to information for pay bargaining.

Voluntary recognition counts as well as recognition secured through the Central Arbitration Committee, or CAC. If your union bargains over warehouse pickers’ pay and hours, it can request information relevant to those negotiations. That may include wider business finances if they matter to the pay claim. Recognition for one group does not give a general right to inspect every department’s records.

Ask your rep what the recognition agreement covers. Union membership and recognition are different things. You can have members at work without the employer recognising the union for bargaining.

What must the employer disclose?

The information must relate to the employer’s undertaking and be in its possession, or an associated employer’s possession. Two conditions must then be met. Without it, the union would be impeded to a material extent in collective bargaining. Disclosure must also be good industrial relations practice. Being useful or interesting is not enough.

The duty covers all stages of bargaining, including preparing a claim. It expressly includes information about the use of agency workers. If a care home relies on agency cover while rejecting a claim for better night rates, agency hours and costs may help the union test that argument. The same legal test and exceptions still apply.

The Acas disclosure Code of Practice, in force since 5 February 1998, guides what counts as good practice. The CAC must take relevant provisions into account. The Code does not itself require disclosure of every item it lists, and breaching it alone does not create liability.

These are examples, not an automatic entitlement. The subject of negotiations, the level at which they take place and the size and type of business affect what is relevant.

What the employer can legally refuse

Section 182 sets out six exceptions. “Commercially sensitive” is not an exception by itself, and an employer’s own confidentiality label does not establish that it received the information in confidence.

The six bars are: national security; a legal ban on sharing it; information given in confidence; information about a specific individual without that person’s consent; information that would cause substantial injury to the business for reasons other than its effect on bargaining; and information obtained for legal proceedings.

The employer must establish a claim of substantial injury. The Acas Code gives examples such as losing customers to competitors or seriously damaging the ability to raise finance. Information required to be publicly available, such as filed company accounts, does not fall within that exception.

There are practical limits too. This is a right to information, not a right to inspect original documents or demand copies and extracts. The employer need not compile or assemble information where the work or expenditure would be out of reasonable proportion to its bargaining value. Ask what work the request actually requires. Existing payroll totals are a different proposition from an entirely new analysis.

What you and your rep should do

1. Check what recognition covers. Ask your branch secretary or rep which employer, workers and subjects are covered. Keep the agreement or the union’s confirmation.
2. Explain the gap in the bargaining case. Tell your rep what management has said and which figures would test it. For a night-shift care pay claim, that might mean grade rates, overtime totals, agency hours and agency costs for a stated period.
3. Let the authorised representative send the request. The representative must be a union official or someone authorised by the union. The employer may require a written request or written confirmation; the union may require a written answer or confirmation. Use writing from the start and link each item to the negotiations.
4. Set a reasonable response date. For straightforward existing figures, your rep might propose 14 days. That is a suggested date, not a statutory deadline. Allow for the amount of work involved and ask for reasons if the employer needs longer.
5. Keep the record and escalate missing answers. Save the request, replies and dates. Use your own payslips and rotas to explain why the information matters, without collecting colleagues’ personal records. Ask the rep to identify which items remain missing and pursue the union’s complaint route.

How the union challenges a refusal

Only the union can bring this complaint, not an individual member. It complains in writing to the Central Arbitration Committee about a failure to disclose required information or confirm it in writing. The CAC does not charge for its services and cannot award costs. That does not mean any adviser the union chooses to hire will be free.

If settlement through conciliation looks reasonably possible, the CAC refers the complaint to Acas. Otherwise, or if conciliation fails, it hears the complaint. The CAC normally arranges an informal joint meeting first. A full hearing is usually completed in a day, according to its guide. That is the hearing’s duration, not a promise to resolve the whole dispute in a day.

If the complaint is well founded, the CAC makes a declaration specifying the information that should have been disclosed, the date of the failure and a compliance period of not less than one week. This stage does not produce a fine or compensation payment.

If the employer fails to comply within that period, the union can make a further complaint under section 184. On or after doing so, it can submit a written claim under section 185 for specified contract terms for specified groups of employees. If the further complaint is wholly or partly upheld, the CAC may award the claimed terms or other terms it considers appropriate. An award is possible, not automatic.

The award becomes part of the employees’ contracts. It can take effect retrospectively, but no earlier than the failure date in the original declaration. It must stay within the workers and bargaining subjects for which the union is recognised. It cannot alter terms fixed by legislation. If the employer supplies the specified information before an award, the right to submit a claim expires and any existing claim is treated as withdrawn.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

England, Wales and Scotland use the same disclosure regime and the same CAC route.

Northern Ireland has a separate system under Articles 39 to 43 of the Industrial Relations (Northern Ireland) Order 1992. The duty and six exceptions are similar, but the union complains in writing to the Labour Relations Agency. If conciliation does not settle it, the Agency refers the complaint to the Industrial Court, not the CAC. The Court can make a declaration and, following a further complaint and claim, award contract terms. The Great Britain recognition changes below do not apply there. See employment law differences in Northern Ireland.

What changed in 2026

As at 1 October 2026, the disclosure duty in sections 181 to 185 remains the right to use. The Employment Rights Act 2025 has changed parts of the recognition process, not replaced this duty.

Recognition changes brought into force on 6 April 2026 remove the requirement to show that a majority of the proposed bargaining unit is likely to favour recognition and remove the separate 40% support threshold in recognition ballots. A majority of votes cast is sufficient under the new ballot rules. Transitional rules preserve earlier rules for certain existing cases. Your union should check which rules govern its application. See our recognition guide.

Do collective agreements change your contract?

A normal collective agreement does not automatically become legally enforceable between the employer and union. Under section 179, it is presumed not to be unless it is in writing and states that the parties intend it to be a legally enforceable contract. Its terms enter your individual contract through incorporation, rather than automatically. A section 185 award is different: the statute gives its terms contractual effect.

The award remedy covers employees only, not workers who are not employees. The information duty itself can cover a wider recognised group of workers. Being described as casual or agency staff does not settle your legal status, and being employed by an agency does not automatically put you within an award against the hirer. Ask your union who the proposed claim would cover. See collective agreements and your contract and employee, worker and self-employed status.

Do not mix this up with other information rights

Section 181 is the general bargaining duty. Separate duties apply on collective redundancies, business transfers, health and safety, and information and consultation in larger undertakings. Each has its own trigger, timetable and forum. If your case involves job cuts or a takeover, read Collective redundancy: when must staff be consulted?, TUPE: what happens to my contract in a business transfer? and When must an employer consult employees?