Council notice periods

Under the Green Book, a council that ends your employment must give you the legal minimum: not less than one week once you have a month’s service, one week for each year from two years, and not less than 12 weeks after 12 years. If you are leaving, the Green Book minimum is much lighter: the ordinary period from one pay period to the next. Your own contract may ask for more on either side.

What the Green Book says

Paragraph 15 of the Green Book (the NJC national agreement on pay and conditions for local authority staff) deals with notice in two short parts. The version read for this guide is the copy dated 1 May 2024.

Continuous service	Minimum notice from the employer
One month or more, under two years	Not less than one week
Two years or more, under twelve years	Not less than one week for each year
Twelve years or more	Not less than twelve weeks

The Green Book says these minimums are governed by the Employment Rights Act 1996, so they match the statutory scale. For the employee, paragraph 15.2 sets the minimum as the ordinary period from one pay period to the next. If you are paid monthly, that works out in practice as a month. If you are paid weekly, it works out as a week.

The Green Book is a national floor. It says nothing about scales by grade, and it does not stop a council from writing longer periods into contracts.

Local contracts and grades

Many councils do write longer notice into contracts, often rising with seniority. The Green Book does not set those figures, so the only place to confirm yours is your contract or written statement of particulars. A few things to check:

• whether the period for you resigning is the same as the period for the council dismissing you
• whether the notice depends on your grade or on your length of service
• whether your contract has been varied since you signed it, for example after a promotion

Some staff have moved between councils, schools and other public bodies. Your notice depends on the contract you hold now, but the amount of service counted towards the employer’s minimum depends on continuous service. Our continuous service guide and the council redundancy service guide explain which employers count.

Notice in a redundancy

In a redundancy the council works out your notice the same way: the longer of your contract and the legal minimum. Acas says notice can only be given once consultation and selection are finished, and the employer must tell you whether it is statutory or contractual notice. It must keep paying you through it.

If you have two years’ continuous employment by the end of your notice, you can take reasonable time off to look for work or arrange training. gov.uk says the employer must pay no more than 40 per cent of one week’s pay in total, however much time you take. On a five-day week, if you take four days off, you are paid for the first two only.

If you want to leave early

Ask your manager and get any agreed date in writing. Acas says that if you leave before notice ends, the employer only has to pay for the time you worked, and you may be in breach of contract if you go without agreement. Whether the council agrees is its decision, so raise it early.

Holiday and final pay

How holiday accrues and is paid when you leave is covered in the holiday entitlement guide. Your final payslip is taxed like normal pay, and our payslip guide shows how to read it. If your tax code looks wrong after you leave, start with the tax codes guide.

For the full statutory picture, including wrongful dismissal and what happens if notice is not given properly, read the notice periods guide. To plan your finances while you work out notice, the take-home pay calculator shows what each month’s pay will be.