Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service

Mr. Jenkins

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many disputes and claims were handled by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service in each of the regions in each of the last five years. (150301)

The number of individual conciliation claims handled by ACAS during the five years up to 2006-07 is as follows:

Region	2002-03	2003-04	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	Five-year total
London	15,109	15,214	12,435	33,001	8,905	84,664
South and East	10,414	10,666	8,473	8,094	9,965	47,612
East of England	7,355	7,442	5,804	5,100	5,126	30,827
East Midlands	6,090	7,493	5,224	6,105	6,864	31,776
West Midlands	7,977	8,724	6,662	9,670	7,100	40,133
North East	5,294	5,928	9,120	8,349	9,006	37,697
Yorkshire and Humber	8,015	9,202	7,110	7,887	8,081	40,295
North West	14,310	15,932	11,783	15,445	12,521	69,991
Scotland	9,309	10,366	7,138	8,379	7,703	42,895
South West	5,815	6,888	5,035	4,543	5,248	27,529
Wales	4,765	4,704	3,049	3,139	3,520	19,177
Total, all regions	94,453	102,559	81,833	109,712	84,039	472,596

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how many Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service employees there are in each region. (150302)

The number of people employed by ACAS as of June 2007 is as follows:

ACAS region	Total number of employees
London	88
Midlands and Eastern	152
North West	96
Northern	110
Scotland	49
Wales, South West and the South	139
ACAS National (Head Office)	141
Total	775

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform which regions are covered by the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. (150303)

ACAS operates in all of the regional development agency regions in England. It also operates in Scotland and Wales but does not cover Northern Ireland.

Volume 463: debated on Tuesday 24 July 2007