Public Sector Dispute Resolution: A British Approach

There are many commonalities in the public sector, whatever the country, even though market forces are essentially absent and therefore do not exert a force for convergence. Nevertheless the contours of the public sector in each nation state vary, as do the employment relations arrangements. These include dispute prevention and resolution mechanisms. This paper looks at third party dispute prevention and resolution in the public sector in Britain. It first discusses third party public sector dispute prevention mechanisms, which primarily take the form of pay review bodies (PRBs). PRBs after hearing evidence from interested parties make published recommendations to government. It then examines third party dispute resolution mechanisms: conciliation, mediation and arbitration, provided by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas). In fact Acas's main work is in respect of conciliation, (which elsewhere is often called mediation), though it services some standing arbitral bodies in the public sector, as well as providing ad hoc arbitration. The paper concludes by pointing out that third party arrangements in the British public sector vary and the government has proceeded pragmatically on a case by case basis, rather than adopting a uniform approach. It also argues that neither the PRBs nor Acas have direct equivalences elsewhere, so any discussion of 'globalisation' must be nuanced. It does not extend to employment relations arrangements in every sector, in every country.