The control matrix
Page verified 12 July 2026Verified 12 Jul 2026 · 8 sources · 1 recorded gap
Every legal claim on this page renders from the evidence register — its source passage, pinpoint citation and verification state included.
One table: each row is an obligation one of the four statutory changes creates: the trade union recognition reforms, electronic and workplace balloting, the workplace access right, and the employer's duty to inform new workers. The columns are the five burden types the official materials keep coming back to — data quality, audit evidence, controlled documents, statutory time windows, and regulated third parties. Every filled cell states what the burden actually is, in the register's own words, and links to the journey step where it is walked through in full. An em dash means this site's sources show no burden of that kind for that obligation — not "unknown", and never a tick, a score, or a judgement on any union's own readiness.
Coverage is honest about the law's own uneven shape. Recognition is in force; balloting and access are laid before Parliament but not yet in force; the duty to inform has no published regulations at all, so its row states that gap rather than guessing at what is still unknown. Nothing here names, scores or compares a scrutineer, a vendor, or a real union.
Download the matrix as a CSV file — 10.3 KB,18 obligations, generated from the same data this table renders, as of 2026-07-12. Print this page directly for a paper copy: it prints in landscape, with every state surviving in black and white.
| Obligation | Data quality | Audit evidence | Controlled documents | Time windows | Regulated third parties |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft a compliant access request | — | — | A request under section 70ZB(1) of the 1992 Act should be made using the Code's standardised template — not compulsory, and minor clerical errors are not grounds for rejection. The mandatory content is prescribed by the Required Information Regulations; the Code's template is a convenience for capturing it, not itself mandatory. | — | — |
| Serve the request and keep records | — | Serve by email where possible — creating a timestamped audit trail — to an address the employer provides. Both parties should keep records proving when the request and response were made and received. | — | — | — |
| Respond within the statutory response clock | — | — | — | Corrected 6 Jul 2026Conclusion changed: Yes — every clock lengthenedledger entry The employer's response period ends at the end of the 15th working day after the day the request is given — counted from when it is given, not from when it reaches the right person internally. | — |
| Reject some or all of the request | — | — | A rejection must be in clear language, giving reasons for each rejected element in as much detail as possible — plus relevant context, including whether another union has recently applied or awaits a CAC ruling, and whether the workers are already covered by a recognition agreement or an access arrangement. | — | — |
| Know when the CAC route skips negotiation entirely | — | — | — | Corrected 12 Jul 2026Conclusion changed: Yes — a rejection given in time is now stated to open the negotiation period, not a direct route to the Central Arbitration Committeeledger entry Corrected 12 Jul 2026Conclusion changed: Yes — a rejection given in time is now stated to open the negotiation period, not a direct route to the Central Arbitration Committeeledger entry Only where the employer has not given a valid response notice at all does the union skip straight to the Central Arbitration Committee (section 70ZE(1)(a) of the 1992 Act) — a timely response notice, even a full rejection, opens the 25-working-day negotiation period instead. Paragraph 43 of the Code reads as if a rejection might skip it too; this project treats that as a likely drafting error. | — |
| Negotiate the terms of access | — | — | — | Corrected 6 Jul 2026Conclusion changed: Yes — every clock lengthenedledger entry The negotiation period ends at the end of the 25th working day after the response notice is given — but if talks are still positive when it elapses, the parties may continue negotiating without needing to apply to the CAC for an extension. | Both sides negotiate within the frame of the presumption towards access and the five statutory access principles in section 70ZF(2) of the 1992 Act — which the CAC also applies if the case is referred. |
| Refer an unresolved case to the CAC | — | — | The application must be in writing, in the CAC's required form, with the other party copied in; it should attach the original request (with its date), the employer's response (with its date, if one was received), and the union's latest proposal. | Corrected 6 Jul 2026Conclusion changed: Yes — every clock lengthenedledger entry The period for applying to the CAC ends at the end of the 55th working day after the original request was given — an envelope over the whole process, not a third sequential window. As an exceptional longstop, the CAC may treat the deadline as the end of the 70th working day where it is satisfied that applying sooner was not reasonably practicable. Do not rely on the later date without advice. | — |
| The CAC's decision on a referred request | — | — | — | — | By default a three-member CAC panel decides; a request consistent with the Code's model terms — including weekly access to each covered workplace — is more likely to be treated as less complex, routed to a single-person panel, and more likely granted. The CAC may refuse access where workers are already recognised, in a recognition process, or already covered by an operating access agreement. |
| Requests the CAC must refuse outright | — | — | — | — | The CAC must refuse a request where the employer has fewer than 21 workers (counted at the associated-employer level), where it does not provide for the statutory five-working-day first-visit notice, or where the agreement would run longer than two years. |
| Notify the CAC of an agreement, and keep it within its statutory terms | — | — | The parties should notify the CAC jointly, in writing, signed by both parties, with a statement that it is made under section 70ZD(1) and a copy of the agreement itself. | An access agreement may not run longer than two years from the date it is agreed or imposed, unless the parties agree to extend it. The first access visit needs five working days' notice; every later visit needs two. | — |
| Complain about a breach, and see it enforced | — | — | — | A complaint to the CAC about a breach must be made no more than three months after the matter complained of is alleged to have occurred. | CAC intervention follows two steps: an initial complaint under section 70ZH may lead to an altered agreement, a well-founded declaration, and ordered steps; a further, upheld breach under section 70ZI brings penalty fines of up to £75,000 for a first order, £150,000 for a second, and £500,000 for a third or subsequent order — each a per-order maximum, not a total cap. |
| Gather personal contact channels for electronic balloting | Electronic voting requires a genuinely personal email address or mobile number for each voter — not one issued or controlled by the employer or the union — and it must be unique to that voter, never shared with anyone else's ballot. | — | — | — | — |
| Keep personal and voting data apart | A voter's personal information and voting information must be stored separately, linked only by a unique identifier — a duty on the independent scrutineer's own systems, not the union's, though it shapes what the union hands over and to whom. | — | — | — | — |
| Issue single-use, re-issuable voting credentials | — | — | A voting access method must become ineffective once the voter submits it, or at ballot closure if unused — and must be capable of being re-issued if it goes astray. | — | — |
| Meet audit, monitoring and certification requirements | — | For electronic and hybrid balloting, the government states the rules cover detailed audit and monitoring arrangements alongside the protection of voter information (a ministerial summary; this site has not located the instruments' own operative text for what the arrangements contain). | — | — | The independent scrutineer must hold a valid Cyber Essentials Plus certificate, covering the systems used for the ballot, for the ballot's full duration. |
| Appoint an approved independent scrutineer | — | — | — | — | A statutory ballot must be run by an independent scrutineer from a closed, government-approved list — substituted in 2017, with expansion work announced in 2026 — and workplace voting additionally requires the employer's consent. |
| Provide evidence in support of a recognition application to the CAC | Unions applying for statutory recognition no longer need to show, at the time of application, that a majority of workers in the bargaining unit would be likely to favour recognition. | — | — | — | Recognition applications go to the Central Arbitration Committee; applications the Committee received before 6 April 2026 are handled under the previous rules. |
| Prepare for the employer's duty to inform new workers | No instrument located (as of 24 August 2026) Not yet known — no duty-to-inform regulations have been located in official sources (as of the register's last check). | No instrument located (as of 24 August 2026) Not yet known — no duty-to-inform regulations have been located in official sources (as of the register's last check). | No instrument located (as of 24 August 2026) Not yet known — no duty-to-inform regulations have been located in official sources (as of the register's last check). | No instrument located (as of 24 August 2026) Not yet known — no duty-to-inform regulations have been located in official sources (as of the register's last check). | No instrument located (as of 24 August 2026) Not yet known — no duty-to-inform regulations have been located in official sources (as of the register's last check). |
What this page rests on
Every row traces to the versioned evidence register the same way every other page's claims do, and the register-computed status line above states exactly how many sources and how many gaps that adds up to today. Most cells lead into the access journey, the ballot-readiness journey or the joining journey; this site has no dedicated recognition journey, so the recognition row's cells lead instead to its entry on the transition map. Either way, this table is the index, not a replacement for reading them. Anything found wrong lands on the public corrections log.