The Law Society has called for the scrapping of workplace dispute resolution procedures introduced by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) less than three years ago, condemning them as costly, complex and ineffective.


The procedures - in place since 1 October 2004 - were intended to encourage parties to talk rather than rush straight to a tribunal. Critics, however, have accused them of being so complicated that they caused more problems than they solved.



This was a view endorsed by the government-commissioned Gibbons report earlier this year and by responses - including the Society's submission - to a consultation on its findings that closed on 20 June.



Michael Short, chairman of the Law Society's employment law committee and a consultant at Newcastle firm Short Richardson & Forth, said there was 'unanimity among stakeholders, including trade unions, that the entire edifice [of dispute resolution] should be dismantled'.



He welcomed the report's proposal to simplify tribunal application forms and to abolish fixed conciliation periods - because the latter put pressure on claimants 'to jump through procedural hoops'.



John Morris, employment partner at Carlisle firm Burnetts and chairman-elect of the employment law committee, disagreed with the proposal to give tribunals new powers to award costs. He said: 'A cleaner or secretary might be dissuaded from pursuing a legitimate claim against a company if there was even the remotest possibility of having to pay the fees of the QC it had retained.'

A DTI spokesman said that in launching its consultation, it was 'seeking to help resolve employment disputes in the workplace so that productivity is raised, access to justice is ensured, the cost of resolution is reduced, and employment rights are not diluted'.



Jonathan Rayner