“We want to give businesses, particularly SMEs and Micros, access to mediation in a low-risk, low-cost way so that they can experience and have confidence in mediation as a resolution tool in the event of further workplace problems.

… we want to explore an area-wide approach, to develop mediation networks that run across sectors within a particular geographical area. So we will tackle the cost barrier to the use of mediation by funding mediation training for suitable candidates, from selected SMEs and Micros through a regional mediation training scheme. These new mediators will form local mediation networks in their respective regions and will be available to provide mediation at a low cost to other organisations in their network. We will involve local businesses in the design of the network, ensuring this new mediation service meets their needs and operates in line with their capabilities. We will develop this scheme as a regional pilot in the first instance, to ensure the delivery process is robust and subsequently evaluate the impact of increased access to mediation on workplace disputes within that region.”

The government have now made good on this proposal, with the announcement of pilot schemes to take place in Cambridge and Manchester.

As part of this proposal, the government is inviting tenders to train the proposed mediators.

The pilot schemes will run from 1 November 2012 to 31 October 2013. If successful, we can expect them to be extended across the whole country.

1. Abolition of the default retirement age/age discrimination

The abolition of the default retirement age was my number one issue for 2011, and it is still my number one issue for 2012, but now combined with more general issues of age discrimination.

The number of age discrimination claims exceeded the number of race discrimination claims for the first time last year, and are now second only to sex discrimination and disability discrimination. I think the number of age discrimination claims will exceed the number of disability discrimination claims this year.

The extent to which age discrimination will have an impact in the future is likely to depend heavily on the outcome of two cases due to be heard together by the Employment Appeals Tribunal this month. I have previously blogged on Seldon v Clarkson, Wright and Jakes - a significant case on direct age discrimination and retirement. This is due to be heard together with Homer v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, which deals with indirect age discrimination. They will be heard on 17 – 19 January, with judgment to be expected a few months after that.  A restricted judgment in either case has the possibility to limit the impact of age discrimination law. A wider judgment will confirm its significance.

2. Employment tribunal reform

The full range of the government’s reform proposals are outside the scope of this blogpost, but there are many changes coming to employment tribunal practice and procedure. Underhill J is leading a “fundamental review of employment tribunal rules“, with a view to more decisions being taken by legal officers rather than employment judges or a full tribunal. Unfair dismissal claims will be heard by a judge sitting alone, rather than a full tribunal and, of course, from April 2013 fees will be charged for submitting a claim.

The qualifying period for unfair dismissal will go up from April 2012. PLC Employment point out that last time the qualifying period increased it only applied to new employees. If so, it will only have a practical effect in 2013, and with many of the other changes due to take place in 2013 it may be that 2013, rather than 2012, is the year employment tribunal reform really has an impact.

3. Employment law reform

Collective redundancy law and TUPE are currently under review. I’ll deal in more detail with TUPE in my next point. On collective redundancy law we are also awaiting the CJEU decision in Nolan v USA, which has the scope to considerably broaden the employer’s obligation to consult about business decisions that lead to collective redundancies.

The government is also expected to limit whistleblowing protection to disclosures about matters of public interest, rather than purely private obligations under the employment contract. It isn’t yet clear how that will be done.

4. TUPE

TUPE law seems to have been fairly stable since the introduction of the new regulations in 2006. With the advent of the “service provision change”, there seems to have been an assumption on the part of many lawyers that every major transaction will involve a TUPE transfer, and there is no point in looking for any gaps in TUPE protection.

This year, the service provision change provision is likely to come under attack in the TUPE review as being a case of “gold-plating” a European directive – that is, imposing additional obligations that are not required by the directive. Beyond that, recent cases have pointed out the limits of a service provision change in cases where the client also changes, and in cases of the provision of goods. Employers fragmenting services in an attempt to avoid TUPE seems also to be a continuing trend. 2012 may be the year in which we have to go back to the old-school transfer of undertaking rules.

5. Human rights and employment law  

One point that struck me from the ever-useful Michael Rubenstein review of forthcoming cases was how far we are going to see human rights points argued in employment law cases.

There is already an established pattern of human rights points being taken in disciplinary cases where the outcome may be the loss of the employees ability to work in their particular profession or occupation, but the arguments are spreading into other areas.

There are a series of cases currently before the European Court of Human Rights  seeking to examine whether the UK’s rules on industrial action are compatible with Article 11 of the convention.

Judgment is awaited from the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Markin v Russia, looking at the difference in parental rights enjoyed by mothers and fathers.

Also in the European Court of Human Rights, Eweida/Chaplin and Ladele/McFarlane will consider the approach of the UK courts to religious discrimination cases.

Perhaps most fascinating is the forthcoming examination by the CJEU in NS v Secretary of State for the Home Department about the extent to which the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights can apply in the UK, notwithstanding the UK’s opt-out of the charter.

What are your top 5 employment law issues for 2012? Over to you in the comments …

Here’s how to find people to follow on Twitter – both people you know already and people you should get to know, because they are interested in the same things that you are interested in.

1. Twitter’s own tools

When you first sign up for Twitter, it will encourage you to log into your email account and upload your email address book, so that it can run a check to see if those email address match with any email addresses that have registered Twitter accounts.

I can’t find anything on Twitter’s website that says what it does with those email addresses once it has carried out the search, although it is worth bearing in mind that with that sort of thing once it has been uploaded it is likely to stay uploaded, and you will have given Twitter quite a lot of information about your contacts.

Whenever you log on to the Twitter website, you will see that it will recommend people for you to follow. At first, this is likely to be random collection of celebrities, but as time goes by this is more likely to become a useful selection of people for you.

Twitter also has the option of browsing users by interest, but I have never found this to be specific enough to be useful.

2. LinkedIn

If you are on LinkedIn, you can log into LinkedIn and will find an option there to check which of your LinkedIn contacts are on Twitter. This is also a useful way of finding which contacts of yours are already on Twitter.

3. Lists

As you use Twitter more, you will find that some users have created “lists”. These are their own selection of people who they follow, broken down into particular categories. These can be useful, as they will give you a ready-made list of individuals with particular interests. You can opt either to follow the list itself, or individuals within the list.

4. Networks

As time goes by, and you become used to seeing what people are tweeting about, you will find that the same names come up again and again. If the same Twitter username is mentioned regularly by people you follow, it is worthwhile checking them out to see if you should be following them too.

5. Search

Twitter has a search feature (http://search.twitter.com) which allows you to search for particular words or phrases. If you have a particular interest, you can search for words or phrases connected with that interest to see who might be talking about them. Using tools like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, you can even set up columns with standing searches, so that you can always see who is mentioning a particular topic.

This works best where you focus on very specific words or phrases. My home town is Reading, and searching for “Reading” is useless. I get result about what people are reading, rather than what is going on in Reading.

6. Hashtags

Hashtags are strange things. They are words with a “#” in front of them, and are pretty much unique to Twitter. No one controls or governs them, and they can be used in whatever way people choose. Sometimes they are used as an ironic commentary on a tweet, sometimes to denote a response to a particular internet meme or fad, or sometimes to denote a particular topic.

The one thing that hashtags do help with is they make it easier to do a specific search, particularly when someone is using them to denote a particular topic.

There is no way to get used to hashtags without actually using Twitter and seeing how they are used. You will soon pick up the etiquette, and probably also some useful hashtags that you can search against to find other people with the same interest. For instance, there is a hashtag that people use to denote things to do with Reading (#rdg). Searching for this will turn up far more useful results that searching on “Reading”.

7. Link shorteners

It won’t take you long to realise that people use Twitter to share internet links – to articles of interest, or other websites. You will probably start doing it yourself. If you are interested in elephant conservation, and you come across an article online about elephant conservation, you may well want to share a link to that article on Twitter.

If it is an article in a popular website, such as one of the national newspapers, there is a fair chance that other people will chose to share it as well, and if they are sharing that link they may be just as interested in elephant conservation as you are.

If you sign up for a link shortening service like bit.ly and use it to shorten your links, you can also see who else has used the link shortening service to share that article. It would be a good idea to check them out on Twitter as they may well have the same interest as you.

8. If you can’t find, found

It is still relatively early days for Twitter, and it may be that there is no established community of people who are interested in elephant conservation. If there isn’t, why don’t you try to start one?

If you start tweeting about elephant conservation, others who are interested can find you by using the methods I have described. Once there are a handful of people, you might suggest using a particular hashtag to denote the elephant tweets. You could compile a list of the elephant tweeters you know of, and before you know it there will be a community of elephant tweeters.

1. Follow first

My recommendation to newcomers to Twitter is always to follow first. That is, for about 2-4 weeks don’t tweet anything – just sign up to follow people and follow what they are saying. This will give you a good basic sense of how Twitter works, and you will be able to see what others do right or wrong. Your first action on Twitter should not be tweet, but it should be to find people to follow, and spend time seeing what they have to say and how they say it.

2. Go mobile

I don’t think you can really get involved in Twitter by only using the computer desktop. Make sure you can get Twitter on your mobile phone – by using the Twitter mobile website (http://m.twitter.com) or one of the official or unofficial apps that are available.

3. Think local

When you first join Twitter you will probably find that the most interesting, most followed and most prolific people on Twitter are based thousands of miles away from you. When I started on Twitter, the first people I found who were tweeting about things that I was interested in were based in the US.  It is tempting to follow them, but my experience has been that you will get more out of Twitter if you keep things more local. What your definition of “local” is will depend on what you are interested in and what you motivations are for joining Twitter. For some, it will be their home town. For others it will be much wider. For me it is the whole of the UK. I follow very few people on Twitter who are not based in the UK.

4. Think small

It is tempting when first on Twitter to follow the celebrities and the big names. If you think being on Twitter is a good way to pitch your manuscript to Stephen Fry – it isn’t. By all means follow the celebs for their gossip, but in my experience you are likely to form much better relationships on Twitter, and get more out of it, if you think small. People with a few hundred or a few thousand followers are far more likely to engage with you in a meaningful way compared to those with a few million followers.

5. Meet in real life

I’m not suggesting you meet one-on-one with someone you have just come across on Twitter – that is not a good idea. What I do recommend is that if you get involved with a group of people on Twitter, look out for any “tweet-up”s they may be holding. These are public gatherings (usually held in bars or restaurants) for people on Twitter to get to know each other better. In my experience, they are generally friendly gatherings, and a great way to get to know people better.

Coming soon Now available in part 2 – how to find your community on Twitter.

Of particular interest to lawyers is that in the top ten “what is …” searches for the UK are “what is copyright” and “what is probate” – both substantial legal topics that law firms ought to be well placed to answer, and hope to win paying clients from.

So what do people who are searching for these terms get?

These days, Google personalises searches based on previous searches made by an individual, and other information they can obtain or guess at, such as the location of the person making the search, so no two searches necessarily return the same results, but these screenshots are what I got from searches on those terms, having deleted any Google cookies and selected “pages from the UK”:

What is copyright?

First, we get a definition from various dictionary sources – fair enough, but not in any sense a guide to copyright law.

The next entry is from a university. Academic institutions need a good understanding of copyright (something Emily Goodhand is doing work on), but internal university guidance on copyright is not necessarily what the world is looking for.

We then have a note from the “UK Copyright Service”. Lawyers would probably hope that clients would come to them first, rather than the likes of the  UK Copyright Service.

After that, we have the IPO, and various academic or other services. There are no lawyers or law firms.

Where are the lawyers? I don’t know. Your results may vary, but I got through five pages of results without finding any. There didn’t even seem to be any advertising by lawyers on the paid-for results.

What is probate?

Probate is a key area of private client law. The picture is better here. The second result seems to be from a firm of solicitors. The third and fourth result might be, but it’s not really clear.

Rather ominously for solicitors, the Co-op ranks higher than the Law Society in the Google results.

Even given these few solicitors firms, the showing is poor for what will be a key high street area of law.

The challenge

Google results are not everything. Some firms might not want to encourage the kinds of work or enquiries they get from search engines, but here is the challenge to law firms and their marketers: this time next year, make sure your firms are on the first page of these results.

Update: Darlingtons Solicitors are the first to accept the challenge. Will anyone else join them?