The Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations, approved by Parliament in December, implement an EU Directive of 2002 and will be phased in over the next three years, giving smaller firms more time to prepare.
They will apply to firms with 150 or more employees from 6th April 2005. They will apply to firms with 100 or more employees in 2007 and those with 50 or more in 2008.
The Regulations give employers the flexibility to agree consultation arrangements with their employees tailored to their particular circumstances. The DTI says they will facilitate voluntary agreements and allow pre-existing arrangements supported by the workforce and management to continue.
In general, the Regulations give employers and employees a free hand to agree on the subjects, timing and method of consultation; set up arrangements that apply to several companies as a group; and agree different consultation arrangements in different parts of a company, for example, at different locations or covering different parts of the workforce.
After the Regulations come into force, employers need not do anything unless employees trigger a request for negotiations. When there is such a request, the negotiation of an information and consultation agreement will take place against the benchmark of "standard information and consultation provisions", which the Central Arbitration Committee may ultimately enforce in the event of a failure to agree.
