Workplace expert Acas has published its 2015/16 Annual Report, which shows that its services continue to perform strongly.
Acas continued to conciliate to prevent or resolve disputes between groups of workers and their employer with 970 national and regional disputes in a wide range of sectors in 2015/16.
The company’s individual dispute resolution service also performed strongly. Acas received over 92,000 early conciliation notifications in 2015/16 and unfair dismissals was the top issue. Research published earlier this year also showed that seven out of ten potential employment tribunals have been resolved or avoided thanks to Acas help.
Acas Chair Sir Brendan Barber said:
“It has been a particularly busy year for Acas, which has seen us deal with a large number of collective disputes such as Network Rail, London Underground Night Tube and the junior doctors’ contract.
“Our latest annual report also shows how our diverse range of services continues to help improve working life and organisational success. This is very important as good workplace relations and practices can help improve productivity in the workplace, reaping huge benefits to businesses, employers, employees and the economy.”
The report finds that the Acas helpline answered nearly 944,000 calls. The top three topic categories were discipline, dismissal and grievances; contracts; and wages. Acas’ automated online helpline advice service helped customers in over 509,000 sessions.
Website visits increased by around 800,000 to just short of 10 million, with a total of over 22 million web page views. Our website visitors downloaded 1.1 million guides on employment law and topics such as managing discipline, offering someone their first job, and preventing discrimination – an increase of 100,000 on the year before.
Acas trained over 34,000 delegates on a range of workplace topics including the latest changes in employment law.
Rebecca joined the HRreview editorial team in January 2016. After graduating from the University of Sheffield Hallam in 2013 with a BA in English Literature, Rebecca has spent five years working in print and online journalism in Manchester and London. In the past she has been part of the editorial teams at Sleeper and Dezeen and has founded her own arts collective.
