WHILE the recession has caused a significant increase in the number of employment tribunal claims, David Argent, from Lamb Brooks Solicitors, believes that many of these could have been avoided.

The firm’s partner, specialising in employment law, based at Victoria House, in Winchester Street, Basingstoke, gave an employment law update at a breakfast meeting, held in conjunction with Barclays Commercial at the Apollo Hotel in Basingstoke.

Mr Argent said: “While sex discrimination and equal pay claims are down, it’s hardly surprising that there are big increases with anything to do with unemployment, especially with a massive increase in claims for failing to inform or consult during the redundancy process.

“And perhaps just as worryingly, there’s been a massive increase in the time it takes for disputes to get to an employment tribunal hearing – in some parts of the country it can now be a year or more before it gets there.”

Mr Argent said that much of the “discredited”

statutory dispute resolution rules were scrapped in April this year and have been replaced by an ACAS Code of Conduct, which he recommended employers to download from acas.org.uk.

Other topics involved disciplinary and grievance procedures, as well as changes to statutory holiday entitlements and regulations concerning sick pay and leave.

He also spoke about The Equality Bill, which is set to become law in October 2010, replacing among others the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Hinting at the complexity of the changes, Mr Argent said: “We have a Bill consisting of 205 sections, 28 schedules and over 500 pages, about half of which consist of explanatory notes. But it does, to a degree, harmonise the definition of what is and isn’t unlawful discrimination.”

Peter Yearling, corporate financial planning manager from Barclays Commercial, discussed the implications of pension compulsion in 2012, the issues to companies and potential solutions.

Anyone who would like a copy of Mr Argent’s presentation notes, or has an employment query, can contact him by calling 01256 305534 or by emailing david.argent@lambbrooks.com.