The statutory instrument published on legislation.gov.uk does one specific job: it appoints 25 August 2026 as the date on which the Code of Practice on Electronic and Workplace Balloting for Statutory Trade Union Ballots takes effect. It is a commencement Order, not a free-standing set of ballot rules. Made on 28 July 2026 and laid before Parliament on 29 July 2026, the Order applies in England and Wales and Scotland. Signed by Jonathan Reynolds for the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, it gives unions, employers and advisers a fixed legal start date for the new code.
According to the instrument, the legal basis sits in sections 203 and 204 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Those provisions allow the Secretary of State to issue codes of practice intended to improve industrial relations and to promote desirable practice in the conduct of trade union ballots and elections. The Order records the full statutory route. Acas was consulted, a draft code was prepared and published, representations on that draft were considered, and the text was then modified before being laid before both Houses of Parliament. That sequence matters because it shows the code has gone through the approval procedure required by the 1992 Act rather than being issued as informal guidance alone.
The parliamentary timetable is set out clearly in the Order itself. The draft code was laid before both Houses on 22 June 2026, approved by the House of Commons on 15 July 2026 and approved by the House of Lords on 22 July 2026. In policy terms, this is the point at which the government moves from consultation and approval into implementation. The Explanatory Note says the code is intended to support the Trade Unions (Permissible Means of Voting) and Employment Rights (Unfair Dismissal) (Amendment) Order 2026, so the commencement date should be read alongside the wider reform of permissible voting methods for statutory union ballots.
The part of the Order most likely to be used in practice is article 3, which sets the transitional rules. Its effect is that the code does not apply where certain procedural steps were already taken before 25 August 2026, described in the instrument as the appointed day. The carve-out covers ballots or elections where a scrutineer had already been appointed before that date. It also covers political fund ballots where rules had already been submitted to the Certification Officer, amalgamation or transfer ballots where the relevant instrument had already been submitted for approval, and industrial action ballots where the union had already given the employer notice under section 226A(1) of the 1992 Act.
For unions, the practical message is straightforward: ballots already in train are not pulled into a new compliance position halfway through the process. For employers, the Order gives a clearer basis for deciding whether a forthcoming industrial action ballot falls under the pre-25 August position or under the new code. For scrutineers and legal teams, the trigger points are specific and tied to steps that can usually be evidenced in documents and correspondence. This is technical drafting, but it serves an important administrative purpose. By matching the transition arrangements used in the related amendment Order, the government reduces the chance of dispute over which procedural standard applies to a ballot that straddles the commencement date.
The Explanatory Note states that no full impact assessment has been prepared for either the Order or the code because the government does not expect a significant effect on the private, voluntary or public sectors. Instead, a de minimis assessment has been produced for the related amendment Order, and the code itself is available through gov.uk and from the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. For policy professionals, trade union officials and employment lawyers, the date to hold is 25 August 2026. From that day, new statutory trade union ballots within scope will need to be considered against the code on electronic and workplace balloting, while cases that had already passed the listed procedural thresholds before commencement remain outside it.