Transforming British workplace relations: Acas strategy 2025 to 2030

The world of work is changing – and Acas is changing with it.

During the period of our last strategy (2021 to 2025) Acas successfully changed the ways in which we work. Those changes led to millions more workers and employers accessing our services in person, online and by phone. The proportion of individual and collective disputes that we helped successfully resolve rose significantly: reducing stress, cost and time for all parties.

This strategy sets out how Acas will build on our significant progress and contribute even further in the years to 2030 to better British workplace relations and so boost Britain's economic growth.

Forthcoming legislative reform and significant shifts in the labour market already underway will increase demand for Acas services, significantly as employers and workers seek assistance in handling new laws and changing workplace practices. Delivering this strategy will ensure we successfully meet the increased workload without reducing the quality and timeliness of our services.

We will do more to help employers and workers prevent conflict arising in the first place.

If conflict has not or cannot be prevented, Acas will be there to help workplaces manage it by disagreeing well.

If individual or collective conflict continues, Acas will help parties resolve disputes quickly and fairly, reducing stress, duration and cost.

I am proud of what Acas has achieved in the past 4 years but we must continue to develop and improve. So, we will keep transforming Acas – making our services swifter, simpler and more efficient. By making the best use of data, digital tools and our people's expertise, we will also continue to make our services inclusive and accessible to all.

This is an ambitious strategy for a landmark period in Britain's labour market history. By working together – with employers, workers and their representatives across the Nations and regions of Britain – we can deliver lasting improvements to working life in Britain and contribute to Britain's future economic growth. We invite our partners to join us in that journey.

Healthier employment relations

Acas has a critical role to help employers and workers prevent conflict arising in the first place.

By 2030, we will:

• Increase by [50%] the number of people accessing our online guidance and getting the timely help they need. 
• Strengthen our offer to all employers on how to create healthy employment relations.
• Make Acas swifter, simpler and more efficient: target the sectors where prevention is most likely to prevent conflict and dispute.

And we will remain the champions of good workplace relations for Britain's growth – the experts on the state of Britain's workplace relations and the practical experts in how to navigate employment law changes.

To do this in a way that's accessible and inclusive for all

We will:

• Improve service access to groups who are under-served or under-represented in our services.
• Champion the value of inclusive workplaces to growth and explain the risks of weak Equality, Diversity and Inclusion policy and practice.
• Advocate for practices, including reasonable adjustments, which engage workers and support them to stay and thrive in work.

Outcomes

1a. Acas is known to a larger and more diverse group of customers.

1b. Good employment relationships – including collaboration and productive conversations – are recognised as essential to business success.

1c. Good employment relations practices are adopted where needed most.

Better conflict management in workplaces

If conflict has not or cannot be prevented, Acas will be there to help workplaces manage it. We will help Britain 'disagree well' by building workplace confidence and capability.

By 2030, we will:

• Improve by a further [10%] the proportion of customers – both employers and workers – who say they have improved their ability to manage conflict.
• [Double] the number of small and medium-sized businesses Acas equips to better manage conflict.
• Make Acas swifter, simpler more efficient: better use of technology, [reducing the 'cost-per-query' for our help services] so that our expert staff can focus advice where needed most.

And we will use our expertise to make a step-change in Conflict Capability in Britain's workplaces.

To do this in a way that's accessible and inclusive for all

We will:

• Include equality, diversity, inclusion and wellbeing as integral components of collaboration and conflict management skills.
• Ensure Acas business support services are accessible to all those who can benefit from them.
• Target sectors and groups disproportionately affected by conflict, including where there are high incidences of discrimination.

Outcomes

2a. Acas-supported organisations, including small businesses and those in at-risk sectors, report improvements in conflict resolution capability.

2b. Acas services ensure every customer knows the best next step to address their workplace problem.

2c. Acas services contribute to strong conflict resolution capability in the British economy.

Earlier dispute resolution

If individual or collective conflict continues, Acas will help parties resolve disputes quickly and fairly, reducing stress, duration and cost.

By 2030, we will:

• Sustain our record high settlement rates of above 70% for Individual and 90% for Collective Conciliation despite an expected rise in demand.
• Amplify our expert voice in support of the reform of the labour market and its mechanisms – including, for example, by advising the Tribunals Taskforce.
• Help the public sector resolve disputes earlier.

To deliver accessible and inclusive services for all

We will:

• Identify and remove barriers for groups and communities who would benefit from our dispute resolution services but are not currently using them.
• Advocate for system changes that make the dispute resolution system more accessible to currently under-represented groups.

Outcomes

3a. More individual employment disputes are resolved at an early stage, reducing the proportion of cases that proceed to the employment tribunal.

3b. Changes to the dispute resolution system are developed that improve efficiency and increase access to early dispute resolution.

3c. More parties to collective disputes are engaged earlier.

With demand for Acas services rising, we must make our operations swifter, simpler and more efficient, while staying focused on impact and alert to change.

We will:

• Ensure our operations and corporate services are swifter, simpler, more efficient.
• Improve our use of technology so expert staff can focus on resolving complex cases.
• Target the sectors where there is greatest need to prevent, manage and resolve conflict.
• Carry out a midpoint review of our strategy and success metrics to assess whether they remain fit for purpose in a changing landscape.

Foundations for delivery

We will strengthen the organisational foundations of Acas.

• Efficiency: align resources to our Ambitions to maximise value and impact.
• Capability: invest in the capability of our teams to innovate, deliver swifter and simpler products and services, reach further, and influence more widely.
• Culture: nurture an empowered and dynamic culture, creating space for innovation and improvement with a customer-first focus.
• Adaptability: ensure our systems and decision-making processes are flexible and can respond swiftly to change, including a mid-term strategy review.
• Governance: maintain lean, effective governance that delivers high quality services and value for money.

Accelerators

We will invest in the tools and approaches that multiply our impact.

• Digital and data: use technology and data to support swifter, simpler more accessible services, more efficient resourcing, more user focus, more targeting
• Behavioural insights: apply behavioural science principles to design services and messages that influence positive change in the workplace.
• Strategic partnerships: deepen collaboration with key partners to scale our impact, including in the Nations and English regions.
• Target and prioritise: within our universal service, focus on the sectors, groups and businesses where our services can prevent the most conflict. These include:
  • 'Scale-up' businesses (from less than 10 workers to 10 to 50 workers).
  • Manufacturing, and health and social care sectors (high tribunal claims)
  • Retail, hospitality, and administrative and support sectors (higher risk of costly conflict) and large employers, including in the public sector, who are over-represented in early employment tribunal cases.
  • People with a disability or long-term condition
  • Asian and Black workers

Accessible and inclusive

Our continuing commitment to create more inclusive workplaces runs throughout our strategy. We will make our services – and the employment relations system – more accessible to all. That includes:

• Identifying and removing barriers to access across all services
• Leading change by improving equity, diversity and inclusion within Acas to strengthen our external impact
• Making inclusion a core feature of how we prevent, manage and resolve workplace conflict.

At the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), we exist to make working life better for everyone in Britain by resolving, managing and preventing workplace conflict.

Healthy working relationships are critical to the success of workplaces and the economy and allow people to flourish and find meaning and purpose at work.

Where there are relationship problems at work, there are financial, emotional and health-related costs, which are paid for by business, workers and the wider economy.

At Acas, we help people collaborate and resolve workplace relations problems. We do so by thinking first about the people involved, helping them to have the open, honest conversations that are so often the solution. Whenever we can, we prevent disputes before they happen, through training and advice. Where they cannot be avoided, we provide the opportunity to resolve them, fulfilling our legal responsibility.

Employers often come to us in their most difficult moments and workers at their lowest ebb. Both are looking for someone they can trust. To be worthy of that trust, we are:

Expert

We have been providing advice and conciliation to Britain's workplaces for over a century. While work has changed beyond recognition, our insight and experience ensure we give the most up-to date advice. We tackle new issues with authority.

Impartial

We work with all sides to resolve conflict, treating each side equally. We can always be relied upon to give clear and confidential advice and to be frank and honest.

Independent

We are publicly funded and have been independent since 1974. We act only to promote a better future at work.

Fair

A good workplace is a fair one. At Acas, we respect and value difference and aim to follow the highest standards. What we ask of others, we ask of ourselves too.

At Acas, we lead the way in promoting good work and reducing disputes. Our success relies on our people working in collaboration with workers and employers, academics and policymakers, trade union and business leaders.

Together, we make working life better for everyone in Britain.