Policy News Journal - 2015-16

Acas Early Conciliation one year on 15 July 2015

The Early Conciliation service, launched by Acas in April 2014, has had a successful first year with over 83,000 cases

Acas introduced Early Conciliation in April 2014 to help employers and employees resolve workplace disputes without the need for an Employment Tribunal.

Acas has published details of the first year of Early Conciliation. Key statistics include:

 Over 80% of people who took part were satisfied with the service they received.  90% would use the service again  63% of cases did not proceed to a tribunal claim  15% resulted in a formal COT3 settlement  22% progressed to a tribunal claim.

Full details are available from Acas .

Acas equality and discrimination guides 5 August 2015

Three new guides have been published by Acas with practical advice to help employers follow the law on equality and discrimination.

The new Equality guides focus on:

 Understanding the basics  Preventing discrimination  Discrimination: what to do if it happens

Acas also has guidance on the nine protected characteristics included in the Equality Act 2010 which employers need to know about so they don’t discriminate against their employees or job applicants. The characteristics are:

 Age  Disability  Gender reassignment  Marriage and civil partnership  Pregnancy and maternity  Race  Religion or belief  Sex  Sexual orientation

As well as guidance, Acas has Equality and diversity e-learning to help you get your equality policies and practices right.

Preventing illegal working 6 August 2015

Given the continuing migrant issues in Calais, we offer a timely reminder to employers to ensure compliance with the legal requirements for right-to-work checks.

It is important to ensure the rules on preventing illegal working are adhered to as the consequences for non- compliance can be serious. Employers can face criminal prosecution and hefty fines; the maximum civil penalty for illegally employing an immigrant increased from £10,000 to £20,000 in May 2014.

In May of 2015 UK Visas and Immigration and Immigration Enforcement updated their employer guidance on right to work checks.

CIPP Policy News Journal

25/04/2016, Page 55 of 453

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