If you run a tronc, you’ve probably spent the last few months getting ready for 1 October 2026. New consultation duties. A revised Code of Practice. Policy reviews every three years. Diaries blocked out, staff meetings pencilled in.
Then, in early July, the Government quietly pulled the draft Code back out of Parliament. No statement. No explanation. Just gone.
So what happened, what does it mean for your tronc, and what should you be doing between now and the end of the year? Here’s where things stand.
A quick recap of where we are
The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 has been live since 1 October 2024. Nothing about the last few weeks changes that. Tips, gratuities and service charges must still be passed to workers in full, allocated fairly and transparently, backed by a written tipping policy and proper records. The statutory Code of
Practice that came into force alongside it still applies today.
What was due to change came from section 14 of the Employment Rights Act 2025, which bolted two new duties onto the existing regime.
A duty to consult
Before setting or changing a tipping policy, employers would need to consult with a recognised trade union or elected representatives where they exist, and directly with affected workers where they don’t.
A duty to review
The policy would need reviewing at least every three years, with the same consultation process repeated each time, and an anonymised summary of the feedback shared with all workers.
That’s a meaningful shift. Under the current Code, consulting your team is encouraged. Under the new regime, it becomes a legal obligation with a paper trail attached.
The consultation, and what it produced
The Government ran a consultation between February and April 2026, closing on 1 April, asking employers, workers, unions and the public how the consultation duty should work in practice.
In June, it published its response alongside a revised draft Code of Practice, laid before Parliament for approval and intended to take effect on 1 October 2026.
It defined what consultation actually means
The draft set the expectation that consultation should be genuine, proportionate, inclusive and transparent. Employers wouldn’t have to adopt every suggestion, but they would need to show they’d sought broad agreement that the arrangement is fair.
It tightened up some grey areas
Language around staff based in central or non-public places of business, head office, central production kitchens, was firmed up, as was the treatment of fixed, minimum or guaranteed tronc awards. Neither was outright banned, but the direction of travel was unmistakable.
It left the fundamentals alone
The Government confirmed the requirement to pass on tips in full was unchanged, and reiterated that businesses must make clear to customers whether a service charge is optional or mandatory.
For most well-run troncs, this was evolution rather than revolution. The real work was going to be evidencing the consultation, not redesigning the allocation.
Why the Code was withdrawn
Here’s where it got messy.
Unite objected loudly, arguing the draft failed to honour a commitment to give hospitality workers genuine control over their tips. The union’s point was that requiring employers only to consult still leaves the employer holding the pen on allocation, and that the Government had published the details of this
particular Code without consulting on it in the way it had for other parts of the Employment Rights Act. Unite called for the draft to be withdrawn so proper consultation could happen.
Days later, it was. Reports put the withdrawal somewhere between 9 and 13 July, done without warning, notice or reasons given.
Two theories are circulating. The political read is union pressure landing at a moment of change in Downing Street. The more likely read is procedural. The Government had indicated stakeholders would get a chance to comment on the draft before it went to MPs and peers, and that step appears to have been skipped.
Withdrawing and re-laying is the tidy fix for that.
Either way, the sector was left guessing. On 16 July the Government confirmed the tipping changes would no longer land on 1 October, and would instead be introduced by the end of the year.
What this means for your tronc right now
Nothing you currently do becomes non-compliant
The 2023 Act and the existing Code are unaffected by the withdrawal. If your tronc is compliant today, it is still compliant tomorrow.
Don’t unwind your preparation
The consultation duty is in primary legislation. Section 14 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 isn’t going anywhere, only the Code explaining how to comply with it has been pulled. When the revised Code reappears, expect the core to look very similar, possibly with a firmer tilt towards worker involvement rather
than a softer one.
Expect a compressed timetable
By the end of the year is not much runway, and the Fair Work Agency now sits behind this regime with enforcement powers. A late-arriving Code plus a hard deadline is exactly the combination that catches businesses out.
Remember the duty sits with the employer, not the Troncmaster
This is the point we see missed most often. Even where an independent Troncmaster allocates the tips, and independence is precisely what protects your National Insurance position, the obligation to consult workers, publish the policy and review it every three years falls on you as the employer. Outsourcing
allocation doesn’t outsource the consultation duty.
A plan for the next few months
Pull out your current tipping policy and read it properly
Does it describe what your business actually does, or what it did in 2024?
Work out who you’d consult
Recognised union, elected reps, or workers directly. Multi-site operators need to decide whether that’s site by site or group-wide.
Stress-test your allocation rules
Anything involving head office staff, non-public sites, or fixed or guaranteed amounts deserves a hard look now, because the withdrawn draft was already tightening around those areas.
Design your record-keeping before you consult, not after
What was asked, who responded, what changed as a result, and the anonymised summary you’ll circulate. If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen as far as a tribunal is concerned.
Check your Troncmaster arrangement is genuinely independent
No owner, no director, no one with hiring authority. This has always been the foundation of the NI treatment, and heightened scrutiny of tipping generally means heightened scrutiny of this.
Where Tips and Troncs can help
The withdrawal is an inconvenience, not a reprieve. The law behind the Code is already on the statute book, the deadline has moved by weeks rather than years, and the businesses that use this window sensibly will be the ones not scrambling in December.
Tronc is something we specialise in. We can act as your independent Troncmaster, review or build your allocation rules, help you get your consultation and record-keeping in shape, and run the whole thing through your existing payroll so your team sees one clean payslip.
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your tipping policy before the revised Code lands, get in touch.