Ups and downs at Acas

Employment advice and relations organisation Acas has published its latest annual report which gives a detailed breakdown of its activities in 2010-11.

The report reveals that Acas national helpline staff handled around 6.5% fewer calls than the previous year (down from 1,020,670 to 953,999). It also shows that discipline, dismissal and grievance issues made up about a third of helpline enquiries; with redundancies, lay-offs and transfers making up about a fifth, and contracts also making up about a fifth.

There was an increase of around 15% in the number of collective conciliation requests that Acas received (up from 915 to 1,054). These were initiated by employers 16% of the time, by unions 27% of the time and jointly 36% of the time.

Close to half of the collective disputes that Acas conciliated concerned pay and conditions, covering pay claims, bonuses, job evaluation, grading arrangements, pension allowances, or leave entitlements. About a fifth concerned recognition or other trade union matters.

Acas also provides trade dispute arbitration and the organisation reports a 30% drop in the number of requests for this, down from 44 the year before, to 31. Around two-thirds of these requests concerned pay and conditions or dismissal and discipline.

Success in cases involving re-employments following a dispute in which Acas has conciliated remains disappointingly low and is in fact falling. Acas secured around 5.5% fewer re-employments this year — down to 618 from 655 the year before.