More suited to the pages of Alice in Wonderland than to the 21st-century world of the Big Society." That is how one HR director has greeted the government's new proposals to shake up the employment tribunal system.
At first glance the plans, unveiled two weeks ago by the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills, are a great step forward. The minimum period employees must have been employed at an organisation before being entitled to claim unfair dismissal will be doubled to two years under the plans.
Claimants may have to pay a fee to bring disputes to a tribunal while all claims will have to be lodged with Acas in the first instance. Other measures will be introduced to help prevent tribunals over "weaker" cases being disproportionately costly for employers.
The idea is to cut the number of claims being pursued through tribunals and to remove barriers to recruitment. According to the Ministry of Justice, there were 236,100 tribunal claims in the year to March 2010 up 56% on 2009 and it is estimated businesses spend an average of £4,000 defending themselves against each claim.
Law firms believe the number of employers facing costly tribunals as a result of redundancies will escalate this year, so anything that makes the process simpler and less costly must be welcomed, right? Well, many lawyers believe they will make little difference.
Moreover, there is a sting in the tail. Buried within the Resolving Workplace Disputes consultation is a proposal that employment tribunals impose financial penalties on those employers found to have breached an individual's rights. This would be payable to the Exchequer, rather than claimant, providing some element of recompense for the costs incurred to the system.
The financial penalty would halve the amount of the total award made by the employment tribunal. "Such powers would allow the tribunal to send a clear message to employers that they must comply with employment law obligations," the consultation paper says.
The inclusion of this element may allay union and workers' fears that the proposals turn back the clock on employee protection. But, says Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, these additional costs are extreme. "I don't think it will act as a deterrent and employers are already punished significantly," he says.
While it is vital to protect employees, the existing system means it is often cheaper to pay them off even when the claim is ridiculous. These new proposals go little way to addressing employers' criticisms and will have little impact on their confidence to recruit.
Siân Harrington is editor of Human Resources magazine.
At first glance the plans, unveiled two weeks ago by the Department of Business, Innovation & Skills, are a great step forward. The minimum period employees must have been employed at an organisation before being entitled to claim unfair dismissal will be doubled to two years under the plans.
Claimants may have to pay a fee to bring disputes to a tribunal while all claims will have to be lodged with Acas in the first instance. Other measures will be introduced to help prevent tribunals over "weaker" cases being disproportionately costly for employers.
The idea is to cut the number of claims being pursued through tribunals and to remove barriers to recruitment. According to the Ministry of Justice, there were 236,100 tribunal claims in the year to March 2010 up 56% on 2009 and it is estimated businesses spend an average of £4,000 defending themselves against each claim.
Law firms believe the number of employers facing costly tribunals as a result of redundancies will escalate this year, so anything that makes the process simpler and less costly must be welcomed, right? Well, many lawyers believe they will make little difference.
Moreover, there is a sting in the tail. Buried within the Resolving Workplace Disputes consultation is a proposal that employment tribunals impose financial penalties on those employers found to have breached an individual's rights. This would be payable to the Exchequer, rather than claimant, providing some element of recompense for the costs incurred to the system.
The financial penalty would halve the amount of the total award made by the employment tribunal. "Such powers would allow the tribunal to send a clear message to employers that they must comply with employment law obligations," the consultation paper says.
The inclusion of this element may allay union and workers' fears that the proposals turn back the clock on employee protection. But, says Ben Willmott, senior public policy adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development, these additional costs are extreme. "I don't think it will act as a deterrent and employers are already punished significantly," he says.
While it is vital to protect employees, the existing system means it is often cheaper to pay them off even when the claim is ridiculous. These new proposals go little way to addressing employers' criticisms and will have little impact on their confidence to recruit.
Siân Harrington is editor of Human Resources magazine.
No comments yet