§ Lord Lairdasked Her Majesty's Government:
What proposals they have to reduce the waiting time for those listed for an employment tribunal hearing in Northern Ireland.[HL4723]
§ The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Amos)The Department for Employment and Learning has taken action to reduce the waiting times for tribunal hearings by recruiting additional full-time tribunal chairmen and administrative staff and providing additional accommodation and a new IT system.
Future action will include:
the recruitment of additional part-time chairmen;
extending the appointments of part-time IT chairmen to the Fair Employment Tribunal;
further enhancements to the tribunals' IT system;
testing the use of audio recording systems to speed up lengthy cases;
updating the tribunal rules of procedure;
improved case management, and
promoting alternative methods of resolving workplace disputes.
In addition the draft Employment (NI) Order, which has just completed its passage through Parliament, will strengthen conciliation and require statutory minimum dispute resolution procedures to be introduced in every workplace in Northern Ireland. The aim is to help people to settle disputes in the workplace and so reduce the number of applications being made to the tribunals, which in turn should facilitate earlier listing of those applications already in the system.