The Department for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, has published responses to the proposed reforms of Employment Rights and Industrial Relations Structures and Procedures. See the Report of the Department at http://bit.ly/uphjTG .
Central to this programme is the project to streamline the State’s five employment rights bodies into a simplified two-tier structure comprising a single body of first instance and a single body of appeal.
The projected phases and timescales for this programme are :
Phase 1: to end December 2011 –
* introduction of a single point of entry for all workplace disputes;
* introduction of a single authoritative, up to date, information resource for all workplace dispute queries;
* reducing the number of claim forms from over 40 to one
Phase 2: to end June 2012 –
* Early Resolution Service;
* Online interactive single claim form;
* Integrated website
Phase 3: to end December 2013 –
* Legislation completed to establish new arrangements;
* New Business Processes fully embedded;
* Single Case Management System fully operational
There was also considerable support for early intervention and some form of mediation or conciliation to resolve matters prior to hearing or inspection. This will be similar to the processes which apply in Northern Ireland but it will be interesting to see whether the State injects the necessary resources to provide the type of mediation service which is now provided by the Northern Ireland Labour Relations Agency – http://bit.ly/vCSest