Job tribunal 'shake-up' to be unveiled

Employers should be able to hold "protected conversations" with staff about poor performance without them being used in future job tribunal claims, according to new proposals.

Ministers plan the "most radical shake-up of employment law in decades".

Other plans include a "rapid resolution scheme" to allow straightforward job disputes to be settled more quickly.

Business leaders have welcomed the plans, but unions say they will make it harder to bring legitimate claims.

The government says the changes will result in savings of more than £10m and benefit employers to the tune of £40m.

Business Secretary Vince Cable will outline the plans in a speech to the Engineering Employers Federation on Tuesday.

The key points include:

• a consultation on "protected conversations", which would allow employers to have frank discussions about poor performance with workers without fear that they could be used as evidence in a tribunal
• a "call for evidence" on the length of time required for a consultation period on planned redundancies. It is currently 90 days, but the government is considering reducing that to 30
  a requirement for all claims to go to the conciliation service Acas before reaching employment tribunal
  options for a "rapid resolution scheme" for more simple cases to be settled within three months

Mr Cable will also confirm plans to increase the qualification period for making a claim for unfair dismissal from one to two years of employment from next April.

A Business Department spokesman said the measures were designed to remove "burdensome" regulations which make it hard to let go of staff.

"We need to make the system simpler for employers and employees. This package will make it easier for businesses when taking on, managing and letting go their staff, while also being fair to workers."

Business group the CBI welcomed the changes and called for them to be implemented quickly.

Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "Mandatory Acas involvement and new claimant fees will make the system fairer by ensuring that baseless claims are weeded out, and the pressure to settle is reduced.

"The proposal to investigate a fast-track scheme for simple claims could also help.

"Once these reforms are in place, firms won't have to waste time and money and can focus on running their business and delivering growth instead. It will also mean that genuine grievances get a better hearing."

But Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said the agenda was "being driven by the CBI, who want the balance of power in the workplace tilted even more against the ordinary worker".

"These changes will make it harder for hundreds of thousands of workers to bring cases of victimisation, unfairness and bullying at work," he said.

'Retrograde step'

"This will just sweep abuse under the carpet."

Mr Kenny also said a plan to change the decision-making balance on tribunals to a single legally qualified chairman or woman, "with the voice of business and the shop floor removed", was a "retrograde step".

Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said Labour agreed the tribunal system needed reform.

But he said: "Watering down people's rights at work by doubling the service requirement to claim for unfair dismissal from one to two years is not a substitute for a credible plan for growth.

"Instead of seeking to make it easier to fire people the government should be looking to make it easier to hire people at a time when their reckless economic policies have pushed up unemployment to a 17-year high."

Some 218,000 claims were received by employment tribunals last year, an increase of 44% on 2008/9.

Source the BBC