You should only include our clause in the contracts of those in safety critical roles whose use of alcohol or drugs poses safety risks.
Application
It’s not appropriate to operate an alcohol and drug screening programme for everyone in the workplace. It should only be relevant where the employee is in a safety critical role, where working under the influence of alcohol or drugs could cause injury to themselves, their work colleagues or third parties, for example, they drive or operate machinery. Our Alcohol and Drug Testing Clause provides that you operate an alcohol and drug screening programme, details of which are set out in your Alcohol and Drugs Policy, and then it states that the employee’s particular role is within the scope of your programme.
Data protection
To comply with data protection legislation, the benefits of testing for alcohol and drugs must justify any adverse impact on employees (unless the testing is required by law). Testing employees for alcohol or drug use is unlikely to be justified unless it’s for health and safety reasons (as set out above). Given the intrusive nature of testing, it’s advisable to first undertake and document a data protection impact assessment before introducing it and comply with the following guidelines:
Consent
Where you operate a screening procedure for certain roles, you can’t require employees to submit to alcohol or drug testing without their consent. So, we’ve included provision in our clause stating that it’s a condition of the employee’s employment that they agree to submit to a test whenever requested to do so, and unreasonably withholding consent is a disciplinary offence.