Arbitration and ACAS in Britain: a Historical Perspective
| Published date | 01 June 1996 |
| Author | Karen Mumford |
| Date | 01 June 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1996.tb00653.x |
British
Journal
of
Industrial
Relations
342
June
1996
ooo7-1080
pp.
287-305
Arbitration and ACAS in Britain:
a
Historical Perspective
Karen
Mum
ford
1.
Introduction
The Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) celebrated its
twentieth birthday in 1994. The vast majority of this agency’s work involves
handling Industrial Tribunal applications (via conciliation) and its informa-
tive and advisory work. Indeed, in 1993 ACAS undertook some 75,000
individual conciliation cases, most of which stemmed from its Industrial
Tribunal involvement. It received requests for more than 1100 collective
conciliations, carried out 3900 advisory visits, attended some 270 con-
ferencesheminars and completed almost 530 advisory mediation projects
(ACAS 1994). Amidst this heavy workload, ACAS also continues a
tradition of arbitration service which traces its history in Britain back to the
late 1700s. The number of these arbitration cases is not large (only 155 in
1993) and arbitration is not a major means in the determination of pay and
conditions. Nevertheless, it is a complex and valuable service which is
worthy of investigation in its
own
right.
This
paper ignores alternative forms
of dispute resolution to concentrate exclusively on arbitration and, in
particular, considers the development and the characteristics
of
the system
of arbitration ACAS practises in Britain today.
Recent studies for the
UK
(Milner 1993), North America (Currie and
McConnell 1991) and Australia (Sloan 1993) have proposed a strong link
between the use of arbitration and changes in the amount of industrial unrest
in the economy. This literature suggests that the use of arbitration will
continue to rise as labour markets adjust to increased use of employment
contracts, workplace bargaining, and no-strike agreements. A relationship
between industrial stoppages and arbitration in the
UK
can be easily seen in
Figure
1.
While the demand for arbitration is substantially lower than the
number
of
industrial stoppages, the two series are clearly positively
correlated. There are two other strong features in the data (the use of
arbitration (1) increased dramatically in the 1970s (rising from an average of
38
cases per mum between 1942 and 1972, to 314 between 1975 and 1980);
and (2) stabilized at comparatively high levels from the mid-19806, despite
recent falls in industrial stoppages (there has been an average of 153 cases
Karen Mumford
is
at
the
University
of
York
and the Centre for Economic Performance,
London
School
of
Economics
0
Blackwell Publishers Ltdbndon
School
of
Economics
1996. Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
108 Cowley Road, Oxford. OX4 lJF, and
238
Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02141,
USA.
288
British
Journal
of
Zndustrial Relations
FIGURE
1
Arbitration and Industrial Stoppages
ib42 1947 1952 1957 1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992
per annum since 1984, with
only
1988 having less than
130
cases). This
paperattempts to provide some explanations for this greater use
of
arbitration during the ACAS years.
A brief history of the development of arbitration before the introduction
of ACAS is presented in Section
2,
highlighting and exploring the progres-
sion of those issues that became important for the system of arbitration
practised in Britain in the 1990s. (Broader studies
of
arbitration in this time
period are available
in
the works
of
Knoop 1905; Amulree 1929; Sharp 1950;
Davidson 1978; and Lockyer 1979). We will find that ACAS has developed a
non-legalistic, voluntary arbitration service, requiring some attempt
at
negotiation between the parties to a dispute before arbitration. This survey
is followed in Section
3
with a discussion
of
ACAS, the selection process for
its arbitrators, the type of people who are chosen to be arbitrators and the
guidelines they use when arbitrating.
An assessment of the major types of arbitration in Britain between
1942 and 1992 is presented in Section4. This study incorporates previ-
ously unpublished data extracted from a random, one-in-ten sample
of
ACAS arbitration decisions. While the population sampled varied sub-
stantially over the time period, there is no reason to believe that the
sample is not a fair representation
of
the population (subject to the
normal statistical caveats). ACAS keeps limited information on disputes
and awards which it records in (what is now) the ACAS archives. Arbi-
trators typically present the parties with a
3-
or 4-page record of their
dispute and the award (although sometimes this record is much briefer).
It is this limited record that ACAS maintains in its archives. Despite these
constraints, a range
of
information is presented in this paper, including
the private and public-sector use of arbitration over time; whether dis-
putes concerned issues of rights or interests; the terms of reference re-
0
Blackwell
Publishers
Ltd/London
School
of
Economics
1996.
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