With the Government having unveiled plans to overhaul employment tribunals and make other changes to employment law, Denise Keating, CEO of leading age campaigners, the Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion (enei) says:

“Vince Cable’s statement and speech today may have been regarded generally as good news for employers, but in reality we think that it’s too early to tell whether the Government’s plans will do much to reduce the volume of workplace disputes or the costs of dealing with claims.

“Although the expansion of mediation services is a welcome step towards avoiding costly and time consuming litigation, we are unconvinced that it will become an accepted part of the dispute resolution process, especially for smaller employers, in the short to medium term. 

“There is no doubt that claims in the employment tribunals – which stood at 218,000 in the year to March 2011 – are at a high level, but unfair dismissal claims account for less than a quarter of the total, and were actually lower than in the previous two years.  Although it was opposed by the majority of those responding to the consultation, the Government is nonetheless proceeding to increase the qualifying period for such claims from one to two years despite the fact that on its own revised estimates this will reduce the number of such claims by less than 3,200 a year.  

“While the Government says that it does not consider that the increase in the qualifying period will have considerable disparity of impact on any particular group, we believe there may well be an unintended consequence for youth unemployment: one of our legal partners, Lewis Silkin LLP, has estimated that whereas nearly half of all under 20s currently qualify for unfair dismissal rights, this will reduce to just one in five.

“The proposal that all employment tribunal claims should be mandatorily referred in the first instance to Acas for early conciliation makes good sense (providing the necessary additional resources are made available), as does the idea of simplifying the use of settlement agreements.  However, we have real concerns that the developing idea of “protected conversations” will be a licence for employers seeking to use them as an excuse for continued poor line management processes.  And we believe that given the employment relationship is based on ‘mutual trust and confidence’ this approach will undermine employee rights, particularly where discrimination claims are concerned.

“Any details following a review of the tribunal process will have to wait for the outcome of Mr Justice Underhill’s fundamental review next April, although it’s encouraging to see that changes in relation to witness statements and employment judges sitting alone, for example, will be taken forward at an early opportunity.  And we welcome the concept that a rapid resolution scheme might be developed to enable the resolution of more straightforward claims without resort to an employment tribunal.”