Executive opinion Sorting it out
ECA group chief executive offi cer Steve Bratt highlights the successful dispute resolution record of the JIB – and how it saves businesses time and money
I
t may be a surprise to many members that the UK is the least regulated country in Europe with regard to employment law. Nevertheless, in an attempt to encourage employers to bring more people back
into work, the government is currently exploring how to reduce the need for unnecessary red tape in employment legislation. A particular area of concern has been to remove the perceived threat of spurious employment tribunal claims. This is being done in a number of ways, including the ‘Employer’s Charter’, which sets out employers’ rights in the workplace, and the ‘Red Tape Challenge’, with its stated objective of reducing the current total of more than 21,000 regulations affecting all aspects of running a business. The increase in the number of tribunal
claims over the years continues to place a high fi nancial burden on the economy – both with the cost to the public sector, which administers the tribunal system, and to the private sector, which incurs the cost of defending individual tribunal claims. In 2006, the average cost to business of defending an employment tribunal claim was estimated to be around £9,000, while the employment tribunal system and Acas conciliation procedure costs the government around £120 million per year. In addition, there are the non-quantifi able costs to both the employers and employees involved in tribunal claims, such as stress.
Resolutions Therefore, for many years governments have tried to encourage the resolution of workplace disputes outside of the tribunal system – most notably through the introduction of the statutory disciplinary, grievance and dismissal procedures in 2004 that were repealed in 2009. The publication by the coalition government
of Resolving workplace disputes as its first major consultation document on employment issues highlights the importance placed on this issue by the administration. Because of their neutral position, the Joint Industry
The JIB has provided greater
stability and lower cost with regard to the processing of dispute claims
Board for the Electrical Contracting Industry (JIB) and Acas were the only two parties that were invited to Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) consultation meetings with both employers and employee representatives. The government has taken a particular interest in our industry’s JIB procedure for resolving employment disputes and, at the consultation meetings, there was praise for the JIB dispute resolution procedures – and, in particular, the fact that almost all disputes are resolved without recourse to a formal dispute hearing. Other sectors were encouraged to consider setting up similar procedures. The fi gures for both the JIB dispute procedure and the employment tribunals for 2010 have been published recently and show a wide gap in many of the outcomes of the tribunal and JIB claims. While a similar percentage of claims to both the JIB and employment tribunal were withdrawn (34 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively, for the JIB and employment
tribunals), of the remaining claims, 42 per cent of tribunal claims were settled by Acas compared to 92 per cent of JIB claims settled by JIB. And of the total number of claims made, 12 per cent were successful at an employment tribunal compared to 1 per cent at a JIB dispute hearing.
About the author
Steve Bratt Steve Bratt was appointed group chief executive offi cer of the ECA in October 2010. He joined the ECA as chief operating offi cer in 2007, and became deputy CEO in February 2010.
Stability While the electrical contracting sector has been affected by the current economic situation in the same way as most of the rest of the economy, the JIB has provided greater stability and lower cost with regard to the processing of dispute claims. The resolution of employment disputes to the satisfaction of both parties has a huge impact – increasing productivity and reducing costs for the affected businesses. The JIB’s success in resolving employment disputes is
good news for JIB contractors and their employees. We are obviously proud that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is encouraging similar arrangements in other business sectors.
November 2011 ECA Today 17
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