In the first two issues of Employment Law SMIB, we discussed the
introduction of statutory dismissal/discipline and grievance
procedures. As we said at the time, the ethos behind the procedures
was to resolve disputes internally before they escalated into
litigation. The Government expected that the new scheme would
reduce the level of Tribunal claims by up to 40,000 a year.
Now, only three years after they were first introduced, it is
widely accepted that the procedures have failed to achieve their
aim. There is no evidence that disputes are any more likely to be
resolved internally than they previously were and, as we report in
this issue, the number of Tribunal claims continue to rise. At the
risk of being too cynical, it does seem that the only real
beneficiaries of the scheme are the lawyers who get paid to fight
over whether or not its procedural technicalities have been
complied with.
It is no great surprise therefore that there are already
proposals to repeal the statutory scheme. Those proposals follow
the publication of a report into the efficacy of the procedures.
Amongst other things, that report also recommended the abolition of
ACAS fixed periods of conciliation and strengthening the power of
Tribunals to make awards of costs.
Reform of the statutory scheme will take a bit of time to
implement but we will keep you updated as matters progress.