Lawyers have always advised employers that if they did not want their employees to rely on a provision they should make it a policy rather than a contractual right.

However a recent case dealing with redundancy found that the redundancy policy, which clearly stated that it did not form part of the contract, was found to be a contractual right through custom and practice, i.e. it had existed and been followed over a period of time.

In future the best advice would be to state that a payment made as part of a policy will only be made if qualifying conditions are met. So that payments are not automatically made.