Notify Acas about making a claim to the employment tribunal beta reassessment
Service Standard assessment report Notify Acas about making a claim to the employment tribunal 25/05/2023
Service Standard assessment report
Notify Acas about making a claim to the employment tribunal
| From: | Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) |
| Assessment date: | 25/05/2023 |
| Stage: | Beta re-assessment |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | ACAS |
Previous assessment reports
Service description
This service allows claimants or their representatives to notify Acas of a workplace dispute and choose whether they want early conciliation or to get a certificate to the employment tribunal for a judge to decide. It is a statutory service, and claimants cannot access the employment tribunal without first making a notification to Acas. Acas receives up to 120,000 notifications a year.
Early conciliation is a largely telephone-based service that involves speaking with individuals and organisations in the dispute. Highly trained conciliators help parties understand relevant legal principles and assist them to reach a resolution.
If a resolution cannot be found, or the claimant does not want conciliation, then Acas provides a certificate that allows parties to take their dispute to the employment tribunal.
Service users
- Claimants – individuals with a workplace dispute.
- Representatives – solicitors, legal advisors, trades’ union representatives or family members/friends who speak to Acas on behalf of a claimant.
Assessment scope
The service was re-assessed by correspondence against points 4, 9 and 10, which were not met at the original beta assessment on 7 February 2023. This report sets out the outcome and recommendations of the re-assessment only, save for point 4 which includes a public beta recommendation carried over from the original report. The team will need to consider the recommendations in both reports during the public beta phase.
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team investigated the save and continue feature used by two other government services (Employment Tribunal ‘Make a claim’ form and ‘Apply for a Blue Badge’ service), which offer the feature early in the user journey. The team tested and iterated removing the ‘memorable word’ option and moving the ‘Save and Return’ call to the Task List page, which was positively received by test subjects, but they also raised concerns about feature visibility and exiting the service. Further opportunities for investigation have been identified, which will be further tested in public beta, but not before October 2023
- the team has reviewed the incidence of multiple questions relating to multiple reasons and the effect this has on users. Findings indicate most users choose two jurisdictions or less and there are clear usage patterns with multiple jurisdictions. Two design options showing questions within a jurisdiction subsection are to be tested in public beta
- the team has signed up for cross government Get Feedback sessions and intends to present their ‘Save and Return’ findings and recommendations at the next available session in Autumn 2023
What the team needs to explore
Before the next assessment, the team needs to:
-
test prototypes without the ‘Save and Return’ feature and Task List, with users who haven’t seen previous versions of the form to evidence user need
- explore alternatives to marking questions as ‘optional’ throughout the form, consider using questions which allow the user to state whether they wish to answer the question or not, and engage with Legal on making the process simpler to use
- continue to review internal processes to enable quicker updates to the form
- review service content to ensure it is in line with WCAG 2.2 guidelines, when published
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- Acas has implemented a cookie compliance mechanism across both the Acas website and the Notify Acas service, which is compliant with the Information Commissioner’s Office 2020 guidance on cookies
- technical changes are risk assessed by the Acas Change Advisory Board ahead of deployment, which then undergo automated and manual testing before entering production
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- Acas has implemented a cookie compliance mechanism across both the Acas website and the Notify Acas service, which is compliant with the Information Commissioner’s Office 2020 guidance on cookies
- the team has reviewed core user needs and iterated the performance framework, retiring one metric and adding two new ones to better measure success
- the team has used MS Dynamics and Power BI to track and analyse data from the legacy Notify Acas service allowing them to monitor usage and questions with low uptake, and test resulting changes
- the team has created an evaluation template for use ahead of new iterations enabling them to consider what will be measured and success criteria, before implementation
Next Steps
This service can now move into a public beta phase, subject to implementing the recommendations outlined in the report.
The service must meet the standard at a live assessment before:
● turning off the legacy service
● reducing the team’s resource to a ‘business as usual’ team
● removing the ‘beta’ banner from the service