§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many cases under Schedule 11 to the Employment Protection Act are now awaiting hearing by the Central Arbitration Committee; what is the average waiting time; and how such waiting time has varied since the Central Arbitration Committee acquired jurisdiction to determine Schedule 11 claims.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerI understand that on 30th April about 380 cases were awaiting hearing. Because of the numbers of claims received, the average time236W taken by the Central Arbitration Committee to deal with them increased from about eight weeks early last year to over 20 weeks by the end of 1977. This waiting time has now been reduced to about 16 to 20 weeks, despite an increase in the CAC's overall workload.
§ Mr. Greville Jannerasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many recognition claims are awaiting hearing by the Central Arbitration Committee; what is the average waiting time; and how these figures differ in respect of the years 1975 to 1977 inclusive.
§ Mr. Harold WalkerI understand from the Central Arbitration Committee that three applications under Section 16 of the Employment Protection Act 1975 are currently awaiting hearing by the Committee. In addition, there are two cases for which a hearing has not been fixed as one of the parties has taken action in the courts in regard to a related matter. The average period between application and hearing in the eight Section 16 cases heard so far this year is about three-and-a-half months. Prior to this year only two such applications had been made to the Committee, and in those cases the periods were approximately one and two months.