The advisory function of ACAS - a preliminary appraisal of the advisory visit

The advisory function of ACAS -

a preliminary appraisal of the advisoryvisit

Of the services provided by ACAS, the advisory side has attracted least attention from industrial relations commentators. Here the authors present the findings of a pilot study of one form of ACAS advisory activity - the advisory visit.

OTH from published material and general B observation it seems fair to claim that of the services provided by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), the advisory service has attracted least attention from academic and other industrial relations commentators. Rather than speculate about possible reasons for that situation we present the findings of a pilot study of one form of ACAS advisory activity, the advisory visit. * Before setting out and discussing those findings, it would seem appropriate to outline some of the main dimensions and characteristics of ACAS advisory work.

When ACAS was formed in 1 9 7 4 t it con- tinued the provision of advice about industrial relations and employment matters that had long been one of the responsibilities of the Department of Employment and that Depart- ment’s predecessors. However, as the result of the Employment Protection Act, 1975, a

’ The study forms part of wider, SSRC funded, research into the advisory work of ACAS. t The Conciliation and Arbitration Service began operations on 2nd September 1974, and was re-titled as ACAS in January 1975. 0 Eric Armstrong is Emeritus Robens Professor of Indus- trial Relations, Manchester Business School, and Rose- mary Lucas is Research Assistant at Manchester Business School

number of important changes occurred which had a direct bearing on the advisory activity. Although publicly funded ACAS was established as an institution independent of government departments. This independence by separation was reinforced by independence by ‘stewardship’ through the formation of a governing Council for ACAS composed of employer, trade union and independent members. It is reasonable to assume that this formal and statute determined status of independence may well influence the perceptions which users of the advisory service hold about the value of any advice offered. More will be said on this point later.

The Employment Protection Act 1975 also set out terms of reference for ACAS, placing both general and specific duties on the Service to improve industrial relations. Section 4 of the Act states, ‘the Service shall, if it thinks fit, on request or otherwise, provide, without charge, to employers, employers’ associations, workers and trade unions such advice as it thinks appro- proiate on any matter concerned with industrial relations or employment policies including the following . . .’. There follows a list of topics which have featured prominently in the many discussions of recent years about Britain’s ‘troubled’ industrial relations. For example,

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‘procedures for avoiding and settling disputes and workers’ grievances’ appears in the list, as d o ‘disciplinary matters’ and ‘payment systems’. Advice about such perennial issues was certainly given by civil service advisers in pre-ACAS days. But given their appearance as terms in a statute and the presence of a ‘direct- ing’ Council[l], then compared to its predecessors there is arguably a greater need for ACAS to develop policy positions on a range of advisory matters so that a coherent and cohesive national advisory service may be provided.

In the day-to-day that service is given by the deployment of advisory resources from seven regional centres in England and from Scotland and Wales - making nine ‘regions’ in all. Regional autonomy was powerful in pre-ACAS days and remains so. For example, it is open to the individual regional director to decide whether particular members of his staff shall be ‘generalists’ combining collective conciliation and advisory activities, or specialist conciliators or advisers. Other permutations of functional mix could be cited, but what remains important to a regional director in the deployment of the resources available to him is - flexibility. This is largely because the activities of the Service are essentially demand related. Any help the Service provides by way of advice, conciliation, or arbitration arrangements is, in essence, sought by the ‘client’ and not imposed by ACAS.

The volume of advisory work undertaken will vary over time for a variety of reasons. Two points in particular need a little elaboration here. On the supply side, the advisory resource may be very materially affected by a government’s views on what constitute appropriate funding and manning levels for the service. The ACAS Annual Report for 1981 draws attention to ‘a Government decision to reduce the size of the Civil Service’ and ‘to a reduction in resources available for advisory work [Z]. Paradoxically the demand for ACAS advisory assistance may rise as the result of the same Government’s actual or projected employment legislation. Our research provides some evidence of this. While legislation is one of a number of important influences on the level of demand, the demand factor that remains difficult to quantify and evaluate is the client’s or would-be client’s perception of the d u e of the advice.

ACAS is able to form some idea of its advisory effectiveness but the evidence

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accumulated is largely impressionistic and frag- mented. Appreciative comments may be spon- taneously volunteered by a satisfied client when an advisory visit is made . ACAS advisers may encourage clients to give their opinions about a particular piece of advisory work carried out some time previously. Where time consuming work of a fairly complex nature has been undertaken, for example the introduction of a job evaluation scheme, subsequent visits are made by advisers to ascertain what has taken place and whether any particular difficulties have arisen concerning the implementation of ACAS recommendations. In the course of such discussions advisers obviously form some idea of their own effectiveness. A regional director and his senior colleagues will gain information about the quality of their advisers’ work as they move about the region maintaining contact with managers and trade union officers. Summaries of advisory success stories appear in ACAS annual reports. In short, the total evaluative evidence is not systematically acquired and is not related to any uniform, designed enquiry. It also suffers from the obvious limitation that the evaluation information is gathered by the interested party, a process which may inhibit frank expression on the part of the information provider and therefore promote some uncertainty in the mind of the recipient about the information’s true value.

The situation just described stands in sharp contrast to the evaluation of conciliation where ‘simple’ tests can be applied to establish ‘success’. The purpose of collective conciliation is to try to resolve disputes, and conciliation either resolves the dispute (success) or it does not. Collective conciliation may prevent a major strike from taking place and estimates can be made of the damage averted. In individual conciliations, the conciliator facilitates many settlements between the parties involved in unfair dismissal cases, a s demonstrated in official statistics, and that is one measure of success[3]. Clearly, the measurement of success in advisory work calls for a different approach, not least because of its close association with an objective that is itself open to different interpretations, i.e. the improvement of industrial relations.

ACAS officials are well aware of the difficulties of and the need for establishing suitable evaluative measures for advisory work. They therefore welcomed the opportunity for independent research to be carried out including

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The advisory function of ACAS

the transmission of clients’ opinions about ACAS advisory effectiveness directly to the researchers. The results of the first bite at that particular cherry form the main substance of what follows in this article. But before present- ing those results some additional points need to be made.

ACAS makes a broad distinction between advisory visits and in-depth advisory work. The nuances associated with that distinction need not concern us here but the type of job evaluation exercise mentioned above would constitute in-depth work while advice about the revision of contracts of employment in a small company would probably only require a single advisory visit. In-depth work commonly entails a series of linked visits, o r a period of concen- trated work, and formal reports and recommendations may be prepared for the parties concerned, This process, entailing more fre- quent contact with the client, enables the adviser, or the advisory team in some cases, to form a better appreciation both of what has been achieved by the ACAS involvement and of the client’s evaluation of that involvement. In contrast, a single advisory visit may be the only one paid in a period of years to a particular organisation. Apart from comments made at the time of the visit and possibly recorded on the relevant ACAS internal report form, there may well be no other ‘measure’ of evaluation established. In some cases ‘follow up’ visits are made to discuss what may or may not have happened as a result of the earlier advisory visit. Records of follow-up visits are also made.

The importance of evaluating the worth of advisory visits can be better appreciated when it is realised that during 1981, of all the the time spent on advisory work, 47% was spent on advisory visits - such visits’ constituting the largest single ‘consumer’ of the national advisory resource of the equivalent of 120 full- time advisers[41. Partly for this reason we decided to begin the investigatory field work by seeking the opinions of a sample of clients where advisory visits had recently been made. An important additional reason for starting in this way was the opportunity it afforded to test the design of a questionnaire which would later be used for distribution among a larger sample of organisations which advisers had visited. It was envisaged that the same questionnaire would also form the core material of the longer questionnaires planned for our enquiries into in-depth work.

In order that this pilot enquiry can be placed

in an adequate context, it is necessary to mention other methodological issues. Even assuming the existence of an ‘ideal’ sample of organisations that might be approached, the response rate, in terms of completed questionnaires, would remain conjectural. Given the firm undertaking of confidentiality that exists between ACAS and the organisations visited, it was plain that the consent of the organisations concerned to co-operate in our research would need to be sought. The most legitimate way, given the confidentiality bond, of doing this was for ACAS itself to seek the necessary consent. In the event ACAS wrote to the full population of organisations visited during February and March 1982 in one English region inviting their co-operation in our research. Consenting organisations were sent questionnaires - by the researchers - and completed questionnaires were returned directly to us. No completed questionnaire has been seen by any member of ACAS and n o request to see one has been made . In short, while encouraging the research, ACAS has scrupulously refrained from doing or saying anything that might detract from the independent status of the research.

Turning to the questionnaire itself, some of the questions were designed to elicit factual information in ways that would be consistent with the statistics published in ACAS annual reports. Size of organisation - by number of employees - was an example of this kind. Similarly, the ‘subjects’ of ‘advisory work analysed by subject’ (cf. 1981 ACAS Annual Report) were also used. The questionnaire design followed a pattern of development questions being grouped under the following themes - background information about the organisation; origins of ACAS involvement; people involved in meetings that took place; subjects of advice; mode of advice presentation; advice implementation; evaluation of advisory assistance.

ACAS sent out invitations to co-operate to 320 separate organisations. As mentioned above, this comprised the total population of advisory visits for February and March in one region. t One hundred and eighty-nine organisations replied saying they would co-operate

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* Visits are usually the second stage in the advisory sequence, the first being enquiries dealt with by telephone, letter or personal callers. In 1981 just over 300,000 enquiries were dealt with by ACAS. t Excludes a few visits made, for example, to other public agencies to acquire information.

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and 35 saying they could or would not. Ques- tionnaires were therefore distributed to 189 clients. Of these 1 2 1 returned questionnaires that were valid in the sense that the information thay contained could be computerised. This constituted an encouraging response rate of 38% in relation to the total advisory visits made. An additional ten organisations tele- phoned or wrote to the effect that although the questionnaire was not appropriate to their particular circumstances they were prepared to comment on advisory work. What now follows is a summary of the main findings of the pilot survey.

Main characteristics of the responding sample

As stated earlier, the Service is required to provide advice ‘on request or otherwise . . . to employers, employers’ associations, workers and trade unions . . .’. It seems unlikely that trade unions in their capacity as employers will seek advice from ACAS or will commonly initiate an advisory visit on behalf of their members employed by a particular company. The ACAS Annual Report shows that durinq 1981 of a total 12 ,484 advisory visits in Great Britain only 176 (1 .4%) were paid to trade unions. (The corresponding figures for employers’ associations were 189 (1 .5%) . What cannot be readily brought out in figures is the degree of trade union rnuoluement in advisory visits, many visits to companies entailing discussions with trade union representatives. For the most part, however, it is the role of the organisation as employer that brings about the advisory visit and such visits are readily quantified.

Among other analyses ACAS relates the

number of visits to size of organisation - measured by number of employees. Table 1 compares the results of the pilot survey with the national figures.

Given that each of the nine regions is likely to be unique in its industrial and employment structures, variations between the single region and national percentage figures in the 1-49, 300-499 and 500- 1,499 size bands are unlikely to be of particular significance.

The effective distribution of limited advisory resources among organisations of many different sizes is a matter of some concern to the managers of that resource.

Statute requires advice to be given ‘on request’ - if the Service ‘thinks fit’ to give it. Given that there can be competing requests where can most good be done - in the ‘small’ or ‘larger’ organisation? The question has no simple answer. Analysis by size of organisation, although necessary, can tell us nothing in itself about the numbers of people in relation to whom advice was given. In a small company the advice could apply to the whole of the workforce, in a large organisation advice might be given in regard to a very small group. The converse could also apply. With such consider- ations in mind we asked respondents to estimate the numbers of employees to whom the advice related. Table 2 shows the results and their relationship to the size of organisation visited.

Table 2 shows that the relatively even distribution of replies by size of organisation is not matched by a similarly even distribution by size of group to whom the advice related. While such a finding is not surprising, it is noteworthy that the size of ‘advised group’ occurring most frequently is the 1-49 group (34 times). Thirteen of the 34 cases relate to organisations

Table 1: Advisory visits analysed by size of organisation

Size of organisation (number of employees)

1 to 49 50 to 99

100 to 199 200 to 299 300 to 499 500 to 1,499

1,500 and over Trade unions Employers‘ associations

Total

Pilot survey one region FebruarylMarch 1982

No. % % 19 16.0 15 12.6 28.6 18 15.1 43.7 13 11.0 54.7 20 16.8 71.5 21 17.6 89.1 10 8.4 97.5 2 1.7 99.2

100.0 1 0.8 ~-

119‘ 100 100

~

No. 2,896 1,699 1,875 1,305 1,485 1,545 1,314

176 189

12.484

Nationally 1981

YO

23 2 13.6 15.0 10.5 11 9 12 4 10 5

1 4 1 5

100

%

36.8 51.8 62.3 74.2 86.6 97.1 98.5

100.0

100 __

Two companies did not give details of numbers employed.


Table 2: Numbers of employees to whom advice related - and size of organisations visited

Number to whom advice related Sub-total Size of 1500 (by size of organisation 1-49 50-99 100-199 200-299 300-499 500-1499 and over organisation)

1- 49 14 50- 99 13

100- 199 17 200- 299 12 300- 499 18 500- 1499 14

1500 and over 8

Sub-total (by numbers to whom Total advice related) 34 14 11 13 7 9 8 96

~~ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ~ ~ .~

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of the same size (1-49), the remaining 21 being spread among larger organisations. From such a distribution it might be tempting, if over simplistic, to suppose that because of the frequency of the high ‘concentration’ ratio of numbers advised:numbers employed - in the 1-49 size band, most good is done in the smaller firm. However, the figures cannot demonstrate the value of the advice. Revision of the particulars of employment for all 30 employees in one firm is an ‘improvement’ in the situation. But assistance with the easement of inefficient working arrangements involving 20 workers but adversely affecting 1200 others might be thought a greater improvement.

Table 2 also shows that in 34 cases (the total of the scattered figures below the arrow) the advice related to groups smaller than the size of the visited organisation. In four instances (above the arrow) the numbers in the advised groups actually exceeded the numbers in the employing units visited. This occurred where an employers’ association or the head offices of multi-unit companies sought advice on behalf of associated organisations. However, of most significance perhaps is the fact that in 6 1 % (58 of 96) cases (shown by the arrow) the size of the organisation and the size of the advised group fell within the same size band. Prima facie this would seem to suggest an extensive measure of influence, in terms of people ‘affected’ by advice, of a high proportion of advisory visits, irrespective of the size of the organisation oisited. This counsels caution concerning any decisions that are to be made about the deployment of the advisory resource by size of organisation.

Before considering how ACAS advisers came to be involved in the responding organ-

isations, a few more characteristics of the sample are given. No feature of note appeared concerning the ‘industry group’ to which advisory visits were made. The very broad occupational groups to whom advice related consisted of approximately 6 0 % manual and 2 1 % non-manual employees, the remainder not being neatly separable into one category or the other. In 8 2 % of the locations trade unions were recognised for collective bargaining purposes and in nearly 8 0 % of locations shop stewards, o r their equivalent, played an active part in local negotiations. This represents a high degree of penetration by trade unions into the smaller companies in the sample.

Two-thirds of the respondents were part of a wider company group organisation and just over half were members of a n employers’ association. The fact that so many of the employers in the sample had links with such institutions is of some interest. Whether ACAS advice was in substitution for or in addition to advice prima facie available from group head office or a n employers’ association we cannot say with certainty. The evidence we d o have suggests that in many instances companies in this category saw ACAS as the first and most appropriate source of help.

As may be imagined, the circumstances which bring about an advisory visit can be many and varied. Before indicating some of these it is useful to make a few preliminary points. It needs to be kept in mind that the individual adviser has a geographical area for which he is responsible. An experienced adviser is therefore likely to establish a n extensive network of relationships with managers and trade unionists ‘on his patch’ and come to be regarded as the man to be con-

tacted when advice or information is needed. As mentioned earlier, ACAS advisory work is basically demand related in that visits are made on request. But development work is also carried out whereby advisers initiate visits to organisations in order to raise the general level of awareness of the ACAS advisory function and to discuss the possibility of ACAS assistance. (This process also enables the adviser to gather information and to increase his awareness of industrial relations developments in his locality.) In its documentation ACAS makes a distinction between requested and non-requested visits and our own enquiry reflects that distinction.

Origins of the advisory visit and people involved

Table 3 shows the various ways in which the advisory visits came about.

Table 3: Origins of the advisory visit

I / - Requested visits Non-requested visits

~~ ~~

Yo % Company request 52.1 ACAS approach to Trade union request 1.6 company 33.0 Joint request 8.3 ACAS ‘follow-up‘

VlSlt* 5.0 62.0 38.0

~~ _ ~~ ~~

Number of respondents = 121. * To discuss outcome of an earlier visit.

In the case of ‘company requests’ just over half of the companies had had previous contact with the advisory service. The remainder had become aware of the service from various sources, the two principal ones being the Department of Employment or other government agency, and ACAS involvement in conciliation. * Of the joint requests most arose from previous contact with the advisory service. Four of the six companies who replied to the follow-up question expressed the opinion that the follow-up visit had been worthwhile. No contrary opinion was voiced. Turning to the non-requested visits, respondents were offered a choice of possible reactions to an unexpected ACAS overture. Twenty per cent said they were ‘very interested’ in the ACAS approach, 62.5% were ‘interested’, while 7.5% were ‘un- sure’. No one recorded ‘suspicious’ or ‘hostile’ as a reaction. (No valid responses = 40.)

Organisations which had requested an _ _ _ ~ ~~ .

Advisory work sometimes results directly from conciliation.

advisory visit were asked to indicate the kind of circumstances which had prompted the request. A choice of seven situations was offered and in the interests of realism rather than ease of statistical analysis, respondents could choose more than one of the seven situations. This opportunity was used and the statistical analysis cannot be precise. However, the most common situation was undoubtedly ‘a need to know more about employment legislation’. From later answers it is known that this ‘situation’ was particularly prominent in February and March 1982 as companies increasingly recognised the need to know more about the impending legal rules on employee self- certification of short term sickness. Other situations which had commonly influenced the decision to seek ACAS advice were, in des- cending order of frequency, ‘an actual industrial relations/employment problem’, a ‘pend- ing problem’ of that kind, a ‘collective’ as distinct from ‘individual’ problem and an actual dispute.

Where companies had had previous contact with ACAS it was most frequently as the result of unfair dismissal claims. ACAS involvement in industrial dispute settlement, including arbitration, was also frequently mentioned. But second in order of frequency of response was previous advisory help. While the thought can be entertained that an adviser was only asked back because ‘he should put right what he made a hash of the first time’, the far less fanciful and more convincing explanation would appear to be that of a further request from a satisfied client.

The request for an advisory visit is but one stage in a process. The persons present at a meeting prompted by a visit, whether requested or non-requested, can obviously have considerable influence on what develops out of a visit. To questions designed to elicit information, albeit obliquely, about this point, relatively little response was obtained. Nearly a quarter of the small number who did respond commented that with hindsight a joint briefing, with shop stewards present, might have been beneficial where the advice was of an information dissemination character, for example, in regard to self-certification. ACAS Annual Reports make clear the concern of ACAS that workers’ representatives should be adequately consulted in the advisory process but advisers are in no position to determine, as distinct from suggest, who shall be present at a particular meeting. A few companies did recall the

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adviser recommending that other people be- side those present should attend the meeting, but taken at face value the questionnaire responses indicate that the appropriate people were present for the advisory visit.

But what has actually been discussed at the visits? There was n o shortage of answers to the questions concerning the subject of the advisory visit.

Subject of advisory visit In its annual reports ACAS identifies 18 sub-

jects in relation to which advice has been given. As some of these amount to groupings of subjects, e.g. ‘grievance, disciplinary, disputes and redundancy procedures’, we thought it prefer- able to extend the list by separating the procedures mentioned and by making similar adjustments elsewhere. Our list therefore extended to 34 subjects. Respondents were asked to indicate the matters on which advice had been given, to rank their choice in order of importance where more than one subject was involved, and to add to the list if necessary. In the event, not all of the 33 specific subjects were mentioned, but the 34th, ‘any other subject’, attracted a number of answers and extended the list of subjects to 44. Table 4 shows the frequency distribution of the five subjects identified as being the most important.

Given what has been said earlier it is not surprising that self-certification of sickness and projected statutory sick pay arrangements emerges as the most important subject. In the course of discussions about these ‘sickness

scheme’ provisions it would be natural enough for the subject of ‘absenteeism’ to attract attention.

Alongside the employer’s concern to under- stand new employment rules, there persists the apparently continuing need to advise employers about ‘old’ employment rules on the handling of disciplinary, redundancy and grievance matters. The evidence suggests that even after the many pressures placed on employers to improve procedures, since ‘Donovan’ reported in 1968 much remains to be done by way of procedural reform and most probably, from the indications we have, in the smaller firm. It is well worth mentioning that the figures for ‘procedural advice’ from our survey are broadly consistent with the total ACAS figures for 1981, the annual report showing that of all advisory visits made in that year, 51 .5% included discussions of ‘grievance, disciplinary, disputes and redundancy procedures’.

Common sense suggests that an advisory visit might start with the discussion of o n e subject but branch away into others. We thought it would be interesting therefore to seek information about the parts played by the client and the adviser in the introduction of ‘subjects’ to the conversation that took place between them. Conceivably a n adviser could be ‘re-active’ in the sense of giving advice only in relation to the topic(s) raised by the client, o r ‘pro-active’ by introducing subjects into the conversation which had not been raised by the client. Whether a n adviser is reactive or pro- active in his advisory approach may be partly

Table 4: Subjects of advice - order of importance

Subject Number of times mentioned as being of: 10 20 30

Self-certification 1st importance 30 and ESSP 2nd importance 2

Disciplinary 1st importance 21 procedures 2nd importance 8

3rd importance -1

3rd importance -2 Absenteeism 1st importance 14

2nd importance 6 3rd importance 5

Redundancy 1st importance 15 procedures 2nd importance 7

General discussion 1st importance 17 (defined as such 2nd importance -2 by client)” 3rd importance

Number of respondents = 120. * Resulting principally from non-requested visits.

3rd importance -1

related to his own temperament and experience but our research to date suggests that the major determinant in the choice of reactive or pro-active styles is the adviser’s reading of what is appropriate and feasible in the given circumstances.

The answers to our questionnaires indicated a 2: 1 ratio between subjects raised by the client and subjects raised by the adviser. This ratio needs to be treated with some caution as the respondent’s memory about who introduced a particular topic into a discussion may, by the very nature of the discussion process itself, be less reliable than, for example, his overall evaluation impression of the advisory visit. Even so, the questionnaire responses show that in more than a quarter (21) of 76 instances the adviser introduced the subjects of self-certification, statutory sick pay and/or absenteeism. During the two months concerned two common and connected patterns of requested advisory visit appear discernible. In the one instance a request for procedural advice is made and the topic of self-certification introduced by the adviser and in the other instance the converse applies. While this inter- active process would appear to be assisted by the fact that self-certification has a high procedural content, the volume of evidence does point to advisers having performed an important educative role on self-certification during the period studied.

The acceptance, by the client, of that role and of the advisory function more generally, may, of course, be affected by the adviser’s personal approach. It was hinted above that there might not be a universally applicable advisory approach style. Further and more definite evidence to support this surmise derives from the answers to the questions concerning the presentation of advice.

Presentation of advice It was assumed that the manner in which

advice was presented to a client might vary according to the personality of the adviser and to the circumstances in which he found himself. Put crudely for illustrative purposes, at one end of a scale advice might be given with an indif- ferent take it or leave it attitude, and at the other with hectoring zeal. It was also assumed that clients would have views about the appro- priateness or otherwise of the ways in which advice was given to them. Respondents were

therefore asked to indicate which of the following approaches most closely approximated to the approach adopted by the adviser:

1. ‘neutrally’, e.g. these are the options and their implications - but you, the client, must decide what is to be done.

2. ‘positively’ (type I), e.g. these are the options and their implications but you, the client, might think option A prefer- able to option B.

3. ‘positively’ (type 2 ) , e .g . these are the options and their implications but you, the client, would be strongly adoised to adopt option A rather than option B.

4. some other way - please give brief indi- cation.

Of the clients (109) who answered these questions, 45 .9% perceived 1 (neutrally) to be the approach, 25 .7% - 2 (positive type l), and 22 .9% - 3 (positive type 2) . The remainder, 5.5%, some (unspecified) other way.

While the answers suggest that advice giving may be quite a subtle process, the key question requiring an answer at this stage was whether ‘the manner in which the advice was given was appropriate to the circumstances’. To this question 97 .3% of respondents (107) said yes. This must be counted as a very high success rate. The three companies who replied n o indicated their preference for more positive advice presentation.

On this evidence, the advisers clearly had the manner of the advice ‘right’. But what of the matter? Was anything worthwhile achieved? This is a much more difficult area to evaluate, even for those with closest know- ledge, the respondents themselves. Before looking at the results of the enquiry into this area it is necessary to indicate some of the difficulties inherent in assessing what the giving of advice may have achieved.

Some advisory visits consist of the passing on of information, of building up the know- ledge resource of the client. No immediate or near future action may be required. Some actions based on advice received may need to be implemented in stages. For clients in this position our questionnaire could arrive at times which lent themselves to assessment or speculative prediction, or some mixture of the two. Some advisory requests are made because of an anticipated problem which, for whatever reasons, subsequently does not materialise. Even these few illustrations will point up the problems of formulating appropriate questions on advice implementation.

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Advice implementation Of 87 respondents, 46% implemented the

advice fully; 32.3% to an appreciable extent; 11.5% to some extent; 3.4% to a very limited extent; and 6.9% did not implement the advice.

Where clients had not implemented advice or implemented varying measures of it, there was the obvious possibility that the full advice, or remaining parts of it, could be implemented, in full or in part, at a later date. To the relevant questions, the following are the more signifi- cant answers. Six respondents considered that advice still ‘outstanding’ would be fully implemented and 3 - ‘to an appreciable extent’. Twenty-four respondents considered future implementation as possible but to varying degrees of estimated extent. Of the 6 clients who had answered ‘no’ to the first question in this section, ‘was the advice acted upon?’, only 2 stated they did not intend to implement the advice at a later date. The other 4 indicated some measure of definite or possible implementation. (Eight who had implemented advice to some extent did not intend to implement the remainder.)

If the actual and intended implementation figures are brought together, then the total evidence demonstrates that of the population of 87 organisations, 85% responded to the advisory visits by implementing in full or to an appreciable extent, or expressing the intention of so doing, the advice received. In terms of advisory visit input in relation to positive response output, this must be considered an impressive achievement.

In view of what has been said earlier, it was fairly predictable that of the ‘advice subjects’, self-certification and procedures would feature most prominently. This held true both where advice had been fully or to an appreciable extent implemented, or was to be so. Of the different types of procedure, reference was made most frequently to disciplinary - and redundancy, the latter presumably reflecting the continuing effects of the recession. Imminent self-certification requirements no doubt contributed materially to the numerous references to the implementation of advice about absenteeism.

Information was also obtained about the reasons why advice was not or would not be fully implemented. Thirty-eight organisations replied to the appropriate questions. In over half (20) of the cases the reason was that the

advice was of a character not calling for specific implementation, e.g. information for possible future use. In 8 cases the advice was thought to be ‘politically unsound’ (i .e. advice technically sound but implementation not feasible because of climate in organisation): in 4 cases trade union resistance constituted the reason and in 3 instances management resistance - on grounds of cost, trade union or workforce resistance. In 2 instances proposed implementation was vetoed by ‘head office’, but in only one instance was the advice thought to be ‘technically’ unsound and therefore not to be implemented.

The accumulated evidence so far presented does point to a high level of favourable response by the client to the advisory visit. But what ualue does the client attach to the advisory visit and what change, if any, did it really bring about? Answers to these and associated questions constitute the final part of the pilot survey’s findings.

Clients’ evaluation of advice Respondents were asked to evaluate the

general quality of advice given, including information provided to clarify issues and improve understanding. Table 5 summarises the responses.

Table 5: Evaluation of quality of advice/information

Evaluated as %

Very good 56.46 Good 34.5 No particular views 6.42 Poor - Very poor 1.8

99.1

Number of respondents = 113. 0.9%, one client said that it varied.

Such results are sufficiently eloquent to need n o gloss from us. Answers to the next question, however, do require some commentary. The question put was:

Bearing in mind that ACAS has a statutory duty to try to improve industrial relations and employment policies by advisory means, did the recent advice given to you bring about a change in the situation that was discussed with the adviser?

To that question 58.3% of (72) respondents said ‘yes’ and the remainder ‘no’. We think it probable that the explanations for the high proportion of ‘no’ answers are basically twofold (and have been referred to earlier) - situations

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where advice had still to be implemented and instances where the advice given was more akin to information for possible future use than for immediate action.

Of the 42 who answered ‘yes’, 52.4% (22) stated that the nature of the change was ‘sig- nificantly for the better’ and 35.7% (15) stated that the change was ‘marginally for the better’. On the negative side, 2.4% (1) of respondents said the change was ‘marginally for the worse’. (In four instances the nature of the change was not specified .)

Although the numbers responding to the ‘advice implementation’ and ‘changed situation’ questions do differ (87 and 72 respect- ively), a closer correspondence might have been expected between 85 clients who recorded that advice had been implemented, fully or to some degree of extent, and 42 who indicated that the advice had resulted in change. Much obviously depends on the clients’ perception of change. A number felt it was too early to tell whether change was occurring. A few saw the advice as information or as a boost to confidence to implement a particular change, Furthermore, the question on change was associated with the concept of ‘improvement in industrial relations’ and it is certainly an arguable proposition that advice implementation might leave a particular industrial relations situation in a virtual status quo position because the advice prevented the situation from deteriorating or forestalled possible difficulties. For example, in a small company industrial relations might be quite harmonious but in the course of discussing self-certification the adviser discovers that the company has totally inadequate procedures for handling grievance and disciplinary matters. The procedures are suitably revised with the adviser’s assistance, industrial relations continue much as before, but with better safeguards against their possible deterioration. From other features of our research we know that the situation just described occurs quite frequently. In such circumstances, it is not self-evident that industrial relations have changed even though advice has been implemented and the advice appreciated by its recipient. That last point may help to explain why, as shown in Table 5, the advice is valued so highly and seemingly ‘scores’ better than implementation and change.

Another way of seeking to evaluate the advice was to ask, as we did, what might have happened had the advice not been followed.

The answers had naturally to be conjectural and it therefore seemed better to leave answers ‘unforced’ in the sense of not offering a list of alternative situations from which a choice could be made. Forty-four replies were received and while difficult to categorise they do include varying frequencies of reference to ‘a dispute’, ‘a strike’, ‘a tribunal case’, ‘faulty procedures’, ‘loss of sickness and absence control’, as well as ‘no difference’, ‘don’t know’. The clear, central message from these conjectures is that but for the advice the industrial relations situation would have worsened.

Turning to the broader aspects of evaluation, respondents were asked to rank in order of importance the factors which, in their view, contributed most to the use of the ACAS advisory service. Table 6 summarises the answers given.

As in Table 5, the figures essentially speak for themselves. Given the high response rate to these questions (76% to 90% of 121 completed questionnaires) the central message seems clear that clients would seem to set great store by what might be described as the ‘impartial competence’ of the advisory service.

The fact that less importance was attached to the free nature of the service needs some elaboration. The question immediately following the one on factors asked: ‘Do you think the law should be changed to allow ACAS to charge for its advisory work?’ A very emphatic ‘no’ was the answer (91.4% - 106 of 116 respondents; 8.9% - 10 respondents - said ‘yes’). When, in effect, pressed a little harder on this issue, interesting developments from the original basic stance occurred. The thinking behind these questions was that further insights into the value placed on advice by a client might be obtained if indicators of a ‘price’ value could be obtained. Two questions on this aspect were therefore asked. To the question ‘IN PRINCIPLE would your organisation be prepared to pay for ACAS advisory work?’ the answers came - 29.8% yes, 23.7% no , 42.1% doubt it, 4.4% doubt it very much (114 respondents). To the question ‘had a fee paying system been in operation from January 1st 1982 would an ACAS adviser have become involved in your organisation?’, 18.3% said yes, 35.9% no, and 45.3% maybe (1 17 respondents). (It will be recalled - cf. Table 3 - that 33% of visits in the sample were planned development visits, i.e. ACAS initiated visits, and 5% were ‘follow-up’ visits. It seems reasonable to assume that no charge

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Table 6: Factors contributing most to the use made of the ACAS advisory service

Factor Number of times mentioned as being of: 10 20 30 40 50 60

An impartial 1st importance service, 2nd importance i.e. attempting to 3rd importance be fair to all 4th importance interests concerned A technically 1st importance competent service 2nd importance

3rd importance 4th importance

An independent 1st importance service, 2nd importance i .e. independent of 3rd importance government and 4th importance sectional interests A free service 1st importance

2nd importance 3rd importance 4th importance

59 25

7 0 - 5

(109 respondents) 51

29 18

9 (107 respondents)

19

36 11

(94 respondents) 11

2 0 21

40 (92 respondents)

would be envisaged for these types of visit.) It is not within the compass of this particular

article to pursue the many important ramifications of the ‘free v fee charging’ issue and questions were not put concerning the possible effects of client payment on, for example, the factors of ‘impartiality’ and ‘independence’. It has also to be borne in mind that although those completing the questionnaires had been centrally involved in the advisory visit, they would be unlikely to have the authority, as individuals, to commit their organisations to what might be regarded as a major change of policy, with attendant costs, if fee paying was thought to be the issue to support.

The last question of the evaluation section was based on the ‘repeat order’ notion and read as follows:

From the experience of the recent ACAS advisory visit, would your organisation, IN PRINCIPLE, be prepared to use the ACAS advisory service again?

To this the answer was 96.6% ‘yes’, 3.4% ‘maybe’ (119 respondents). No one said ‘no’, although that choice was offered.

Interim conclusions Given that many of the survey findings result

from subjective assessments, it becomes an easy enough matter to enter caveats against such findings. Furthermore, we cannot know

how representative the sample is of the ‘total’ advisory visit experience. For example, our sample may be distorted because of the prom- inence of self-certification during the period examined. But whatever reservations are expressed about the results of this survey (which is to be followed by others) there now exist (121) pieces of evidence of the client’s response to the advisory visit, evidence elicited by independent research. Such evidence has not previously been obtained and we submit that when the evidence is looked at in the round, it constitutes an emphatic vote of confidence by the client in the value of the advisory visit.

An emphatic vote of confidence in the advisory visit is one thing, trying to assess its contribution to the improvement of industrial relations quite another. ‘Improvement’ is a question begging term of daunting proportions and while this is not the occasion on which to enter into a detailed discussion of the term, one central point may be made in regard to the advisory visit. A sense of proportion is needed. Conceivably improvement could be measured against a variety of grand conceptual designs of what constitutes good industrial relations. Alternatively, a more pragmatic judgement could be made about changes in a series of very specific, localised situations. A typical advisory visit may last two to three hours, but if the outcome, not necessarily immediate, of that visit means that in the client’s view the

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situation is ‘now’ better than when the adviser References arrived, that must surely constitute On the dimension indicated, improvement - and not least because the adviser is well aware of the

1. ‘The Service shall be directed by a Council constituted . . .’, Employment Protection Act, 1975, Schedule 1. Section 1

need to have adequate regard for the interests i; ~ ~ s D , ” l ~ ~ a ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 9 8 1 . P.12. P.36. 4 lbid , p i 36-38 ’ of other parties, notably the workforce

Documents

The advisory function of ACAS - a preliminary appraisal of the advisory visit