The Government recently issued a consultation document called
"Resolving Workplace Disputes; A Consultation". This document forms
part of the Government's Growth Review and is one strand of the
Government's "long term vision for creating the right conditions
for future economic prosperity".
Taking aim at workplace disputes in general, and the Employment
Tribunal service in particular, this paper sets out the
Government's strategy for reducing the number of disputes that find
their way into the Employment Tribunal.
The consultation document sets out the Government's strategy for
assisting employers combat the ever increasing tide of claimant
friendly employment law. It has the potential to be one of the most
significant and important pieces of employment legislation in
recent years, affecting every employer, large or small.
Why is this something that the Government is concerned with?
The consultation document states that "the Government wants the
UK to be the best place to start and grow a business, and to remove
the barriers to recruitment so that businesses have the incentive
and ability to expand, ensure they provide maximum flexibility and
promote competition without compromising fairness. This
consultation is a major fist step in taking forward the
Government's review of employment laws, which will make a major
contribution in achieving these objectives."
The barriers that the Government have identified to making the
UK the best place to start and grow a business are that disputes in
the Employment Tribunal are too numerous, too slow to be dealt
with, often frivolous and often capable of resolution
pre-litigation.
The consultation document states - "We believe more needs to be
done to support and encourage parties to resolve disputes earlier -
where possible in the workplace - to try and preserve the working
relationship between employer and employee, keeping the employee in
their job and enabling the employer to benefit from the investment
they have made in the individual. But, where the relationship is
broken, we want to enable parties to bring matters to a close in
the quickest and least painful way. Where that is through an
Employment Tribunal, we want cases to move swiftly to conclusion,
so as to contain costs for employers, employees and the tax
payer."
What are the Government's proposals?
The present proposal suggests a number of strategies, which can
be summarised as: -
• Greater use of mediation, and workplace mediation in
particular,
• Early conciliation with compulsory referral to ACAS in all
cases,
• Tackling weaker cases by giving Employment Judges' greater
powers to strike out weak cases or make deposit orders,
• Encouraging settlement by early exchange of information and
formalising offers to settle,
• Shortening tribunal hearings by greater use of witness
statements, withdrawing payment of expenses, extending the
jurisdictions for judges to sit alone and devolving some judicial
functions to "legal officers",
• Introduction of fees for submission of claims,
• Increased length of service qualification from one to two
years for unfair dismissal claims,
• Financial penalties for employers who have breached rights, to
encourage compliance, and
• A review of the formula for calculating awards and payments in
the Employment Tribunal.
What can employers do to be involved in shaping this
legislation?
The Government will be consulting on these proposals with
interested parties, including employers, up to 20th April. It is in
the interests of all involved in the Employment Tribunal process,
and particularly all employers, to feed into the consultation
process and help to shape what is likely to become key
legislation.
The proposals, whilst generally welcome, do not go far enough.
Simpson and Marwick will be making representations to the
Government to that effect, and if you wish to be involved in that,
or to discuss with us what can be said, please do contact us.