Tuesday June 14, 2011 at 3:44pm
We are aware that we are entering a summer of discontent as Britain will witness the biggest strikes by public sector workers in decades if the government does not relent on its scheme to reform pension plans, cut jobs and reduce salaries, UK unions have warned. Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of UNISON, the U.K.’s largest public sector union, further warned the industrial unrest could last for months. Prentis has told media that he believes that public sector workers in Britain could ....
Monday May 16, 2011 at 10:05pm
The Post Online reports that the preliminary results of a survey of mediation in commercial insurance disputes by the UK-based law firm Davies Arnold Cooper show a success rate significantly lower than the latest 75-80% reported by the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution. More than a third of the nearly 100 initial respondents to the survey were only "sometimes" happy with settlements, with, overall, doubts about mediation's cost-effectiveness and its appropriate use and about the ....
Monday May 9, 2011 at 9:58pm
There is an exorable force towards the use of mediation within Court processes within the UK, Europe and beyond.
Little wonder, many governments are needing to save and the appeal of using mediation is to save Court costs and government exchequers their pennies, pounds, euros and dollars.
Within different areas of law, beit commercial, employment or family, we are heading to compulsion of mediation.
Yet, not everyone is happy.
In Italy, a new law requiring media....
Tuesday April 12, 2011 at 8:08am
One of the issues facing organisations who have to discipline staff is that it has become so process driven that management is focused on complying with employment law, rather than managing the employee.
A lot of the empoyment law advice I give to business clients tends to focus on the conduct of giving warnings to staff be it on performance or conduct.
Some points to consider.
A disciplinary process is a pressure cooker situation for everyone. You are bound to feel uncomfortable with it no m....
Monday April 11, 2011 at 6:08am
It is clear that the government is gearing up to using much more mediation with Ed Davey, the government minister writing in Personnel Today, "At the moment, we know very little about how much successful mediation takes place. This is because when it is used and it works we do not hear about it, as there is no employment tribunal claim. We want to know how much mediation is taking place, what employers' experiences of it are and what the reasons are for it not being used more often to resol....
Wednesday March 23, 2011 at 8:18am
One of the problems facing the public and say human resources is the difficulty in finding a good mediator.
Why is this the case when there are so many mediators on the market? After all, there is a vast over-supply of mediators.
There are a number of reasons why there are problems.
1. The ease of which one can become a mediator. It can take only a 5 day course and then one can call onself an accredited mediator. Barriers to entry of the profession are low.
2. Lack of experience o....
Tuesday March 22, 2011 at 9:03am
Many organisations have started implementing mediation schemes and indeed my firm does a fair bit of consultancy of this.
It is all very well deciding to implement a mediation scheme but what are the key attributes of a successful internal mediator?
After all you need good mediators to help administer the scheme.
Is it intelligence, position of hieracrchy in the firm, robustness under pressure?
I believe that there are the following key attributes and they do differ from what an external me....
Saturday February 26, 2011 at 7:59am
I read that the Government has so far paid more than £20 million in one-off redundancy payments as part of the "bonfire of the quangos", figures have revealed. The statistics, obtained by the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act, showed there have been almost 1,000 redundancies from 29 of the 481 public bodies being wound down in cost cutting measures. One employee from The Crown Prosecution Service was paid £200,000, according to the data. I wonder how much negotiation....
Wednesday February 23, 2011 at 7:24am
According to the website False Economy, more than than 50,000 jobs are disappearing from the NHS, according to which reveal for the first time the extent of cuts by local health trusts struggling to save £20bn from their budgets. The survey, by the union-funded website False Economy, highlighats that in England alone, 24,000 posts will be lost in hospitals, another 10,000 will go in primary care trusts and 6,000 will disappear from mental health trusts. They include do....
Friday February 11, 2011 at 11:58am
The NHS could save hundreds of millions of pounds by adjusting its approach to sickness absence to focus on how local managers influence levels of sick leave, an Audit Commission report has said. Staff sickness levels in the NHS vary significantly across the UK, with employees in deprived areas taking more time off sick; the north and north-east of England had much higher absence of rates than the south. The best trusts had absence rates of just four annual sick days per employee while the worst....
Thursday February 10, 2011 at 11:13am
Staff at Neath Port Talbot Council have agreed to cuts in pay, overtime and travel allowances as part of the authority's cost cutting measures. The 7,000 workers have accepted a deal brokered by managers and the unions. Welsh local government leaders said it was a "mature agreement" which would help safeguard jobs. The one-year agreement is aimed at minimising compulsory redundancies as the council looks to close a £24m gap in its budget by 2014. Council leaders had w....
Monday January 31, 2011 at 9:01am
A very good and inspirational article on the benefits of restoratitve justice.
"When Joanne Nodding met the man who raped her, the first thing she noticed, she says, was how scared he was. "He thought I was going to be angry," she says, "he was expecting me to shout and scream and tell him that I hated him. But if I had [been uncontrollably angry] they wouldn't have allowed me to meet him." Instead she told the man, who cannot be named, how she had felt during the atta....
Thursday December 9, 2010 at 10:53am
Public sector organisations around the world face unprecedented pressure to improve service quality while progressively lowering their costs. At the same time, they are expected to become more accountable, customer focused and responsive to stakeholder needs. In the UK the new coalition Government has embarked on an unprecedented public sector funding cull which is already resulting in wide scale change programmes, job losses, fear and anger amongst public sector workers. Let’s not underes....
Friday November 19, 2010 at 12:31pm
It is quite clear that the government would desperately like to cut the court costs with talk of increasing the length of service for employees being entitled to make an unfair dismissal claim, cutting the legal aid costs and increasing use of mediation in civil disputes.
This may help employers but we have been here before with the Gibbons Review which called for greater use of mediation in employment disputes largely being ignored.
An even more ....
Sunday October 31, 2010 at 10:16am
It is quite clear that the Coalition with media support is engaging in public sector cuts, but have they thought of some of the consequences.
I have read that government plans to make cuts in the public sector could well increase the incidence of workplace stress, with a spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union stating that having an axe hanging above employees' heads will "create a certain tension". A Richard Simcox made this observation in response to figures from the ....
Wednesday October 13, 2010 at 10:36am
Many of us have heard about Sir Philip Green's report into the waste in the public sector, but what has not been covered are the wasted legal costs in Employment Tribunal which public sector bodies have to deal with.
For example this has been reported in the Driffield Times.
"The level of animosity felt by some injured or sick officers towards their seniors was highlighted at an employment tribunal in Newcastle brought by 44-year-old Pc Alison Doyle against Northumbria Police. She was on ....
Monday August 16, 2010 at 2:01pm
The Law Society has released a practice note for solicitors giving them guidance on how to deal with mediation before and during the process.
The note should be commended as it is written in plain English, covers issues of use to lawyers and gives some guidance.
However there are concerns which shows the lack of knowledge of mediation within employment lawyers.
As the note points out only a number of cases will come into the catchment area of judicial mediation namely
A full ....
Saturday August 14, 2010 at 11:56am
The era of austerity is posing issues for this government and exposing limits regarding communication skills.
Eric Pickles, who is the communities secretary announced today in the Telegraph that the Audit Commission, the independent watchdog was to be scrapped which will no doubt put 2,000 staff's jobs at risk. News of the interview leaked out yesterday as the Telegraph trailed the interviews on its website.
On the one hand, one can understand why he has gone for the Audit Commission. See the ....
Tuesday August 3, 2010 at 6:35pm
With the Public Sector desperately trying to save its pennies, stand by for much greater use of mediation within the employment sphere and beyond.
One example of the benefits appears in the Belfast Telegraph.
The Housing Executive claims its link-up with two restorative justice schemes is helping it deal with incidents of anti-social behaviour in north Down and Ards. According to a spokesperson, there were 225 reports of anti-social behaviour made to the Bangor District Office last year, while....
Sunday May 2, 2010 at 7:30am
With the general election coming up and much talk of possible hung parliaments, some of you may be interested in this post of mine on the Totally Legally Blog site.
Justin Patten....
Monday April 26, 2010 at 3:51pm
Congratulations in order to Philip Hesketh who has launched, the UK Mediation Forum. This user created forum is designed to be a one stop portal for mediation information.
It is a great place to look for: Case law about mediation, articles and interesting blog posts and mediation news and discussions.
I know Philip and is a committed and effective mediator.
Justin Patten, Mediator ....
Monday April 26, 2010 at 3:00pm
We have less than two weeks before the general election and currently every single poll points to a hung parliament.
With this in mind I read with interest that Dr Karl Mackie of CEDR is calling on the three main parties to use mediation to form the next government in the event of a hung parliament. The letter has been sent to all three of the main party leaders suggesting a range of options to bring in neutral negotiators to help them make the next government. Th....
Thursday April 15, 2010 at 5:36pm
In light of this, I enjoyed this comment on the Times website, today.
"It's time for the airlines and the volcano to get around the table and sort this out."
Justin Patten, Mediator....
Wednesday February 3, 2010 at 1:56pm
Recently Emma Harte of Resolution wrote to the Law Society Gazette commenrting on the success of family cout based mediation.
She observed.
"The story ‘Family mediation pilot achieves mixed results’ (news, 7 January) suggested that court-based mediation in the pilot scheme had disappointing results. Given the context in which these mediations occurred, the opposite is true, and the pilot actually looks like a remarkable success story. The pilot involved cases that were so diff....
Monday January 25, 2010 at 9:28am
According to press reports the TUC will continue to help negotiations between British Airways and Unite. It appears the first walk out from staff will take place from 1st March 2010.
I have previously written about the dispute.
Quite frankly there are a number of fundamental flaws in the approach to negotiation which make it more difficult for the parties to settle.
These include:
1 Less is more. The parties are involved in continious and never-ending negotiati....
Friday January 22, 2010 at 10:18am
As a lawyer and mediator there are always on the web some great online resouces to consider.
Some of the best mediation blogs include Settle It Now and Mediation Channel.
Also on the blogs is respected mediator, Amanda Bucklow who also identifies on her blog that she recommends reading The New Lawyer: How Settlement is Transforming the Practice of Law by Julie Macfarlane.
As the preamble to this book observes, the image of the adversarial "client warrior" dominates historical notio....
Tuesday January 19, 2010 at 3:31pm
Despite the increased interest of mediation within employment lawyers, human resource professionals and their clients, there is still resistance to the use of mediation.
A lot of this can be underpinned by ignorance or lack of experience in use of mediation. One leading employment lawyer told me that he would like to refer matters to mediation but the clients are very resistant.
In addition, there is still a lack of legal incentive to use mediation. The Gibbons Review does represent ....
Friday January 8, 2010 at 11:44am
According to recent press reports, a senior member of the Chinese negotiation team at the Copenhagen cliamate talks has been removed from his post.
The person in question is He Yafei and the source of the information is the Xinhau newsagency.
Oh to blame someone after a failed negotiation. I have seen it many times and the Chinese who always run the risk of being the villains are in the frame.
The allegations against the negotiatior include:
1 He was rude to the US n....
Friday October 16, 2009 at 4:29pm
As Personnel Today points out the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has accused Royal Mail management of bullying and harassing postal workers as the war of words ahead of next week's strikes heats up. In a letter to Royal Mail chief Mark Higson, CWU leader Dave Ward claimed "unagreed HR procedures" were being used in an attempt to bully employees into agreeing to changes to working practices. The CWU said these referred to the firm ignoring pre-determined steps that any employee must ....
Tuesday October 13, 2009 at 3:26pm
As Local Authority News reports, thirteen districts in Essex have joined the county council to form a new partnership to provide legal services.
The context is that all public services face a major challenge in the years ahead, as resources become scarcer – and local government will feel this as acutely as any. Essex Legal Services Partnership has created a new model for local government services, which enables the teams to improve services to clients and communities. The new way o....
Tuesday August 18, 2009 at 2:35pm
There is an excellent article written by Alex Locke for the ELA Briefing on the issue of employment judicial mediation.
We now learn via Alex the following.
There are very few employment judges trained as mediators. In one of the London regions only two judges have been trained.
There appears to be inadequte facitiies such as more than 1 room available.
There is a lack of guidance given to parties which prohibits the judges from giving a steer to the parties.
Oh dear.
First of all....
Tuesday July 7, 2009 at 5:54am
I read on a Chicago that the down economy is boosting mediation firms as more Chicago-area companies look to cut litigation costs. A practice long associated with personal injury, product liability and property damage suits is becoming more popular as a way to resolve commercial disputes. The trend also is getting a boost from an increasing number of construction, employment and other contracts that contain clauses specifying that disputes be mediated. Courts also are nudging more cases to media....
Sunday July 5, 2009 at 3:38pm
Ambrose Evans-Pricthard of the Telegraph writes:
"The shocker last week was not just that the US lost 467,000 jobs in May, but also that time worked fell 6.9pc from a year earlier, dropping to 33 hours a week. "At no time in the 1990 or 2001 recessions did we ever come close to seeing such a detonating jobs figure," said David Rosenberg from Glukin Sheff. "We have lost a record nine million full-time jobs this cycle." Earnings have fallen at a 1.6pc annual rate ov....
Monday June 29, 2009 at 8:09am
There is a very intersting piece in a recent edition of the Guardian.
As Timothy Garton Ash writes a "surprising number of people still harbour the illusion that our leaders know what they are doing. Well, some of the time, some of them do. But if you meet them, you will often be horrified at what they don't know. And you will be amazed how superficial, arbitrary and personal can be the grounds on which they make world-changing decisions. Most readers may not be startled to learn that abou....
Monday June 1, 2009 at 8:55am
Mediation is no panacea but The Salt Lake Tribune (of all things) has an example of how a good mediator can do the business in even the most complex disputes.As this article shows, a mediator was able to engineer a mediated settlement in a very difficult matter.43 lawyers were packed into a hotel conference room last November. And that was just the defendants' legal corps in three wrongful-death and personal-injury civil lawsuits triggered by the 2007 American Crandall Canyon mine disaster.....
Monday May 18, 2009 at 9:41am
Human Law Mediation has just published a new FREE White Paper - Negotiating for Excellent Results.
It's a must read for anyone trying to get the best out of business transactions or facing difficult negotiations with employees, customers or suppliers.As well as providing a 10 step plan for effective negotiations which enable you to negotiate with power and persuasion the White Paper has useful advice on when to try and negotiate yourself and when to step away and seek professional help.
....
Thursday February 12, 2009 at 12:13pm
As was reported in the Law Society Gazette last month, "Proposals for a regulation regime for mediation faltered last week when mediators told the Civil Mediation Council (CMC) they need more time to consider ‘ambitious’ plans. However members of the organisation, which represents civil and commercial mediators, approved a scheme to register workplace mediators to meet the needs of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. The scheme will go live early in th....
Tuesday February 10, 2009 at 3:13pm
A brief mention of mediation in the Law Society Gazette. "Personal injury mediation will gain in popularity as a result of the credit crunch, according to a leading provider. Maurice Nichols, mediator and consultant to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution’s personal injury unit (PIU), said: ‘There are always two important drivers to personal injury litigation – the claimant wants to see an end to his case and get his compensation as quickly as possible – and s....