Liverpool City Council must find out why teachers go to court in the first place

While we are in an increasingly litigious society, I believe that if Liverpool City Council has 12 outstanding tribunal claims from teachers, it should be spending time to find out why this is so (Personneltoday.com, 18 October).

I don’t believe that, in most cases, employees will go to the lengths of making a claim unless they believe they have a genuine grievance arising from what they perceive to be ineffective management or unfair treatment. Or else they believe that the employer will settle a case ‘out of court’ with a payment to the claimant, whatever the merits of the claim.

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If an employer takes this view, it may have short-term benefits of avoiding extensive legal costs but, in the long term, can send a message to disgruntled employees that the employer is a soft touch, and lead to potentially greater costs in payouts. In this particular case, that certainly can’t be in the interests of Liverpool’s residents who, ultimately, will foot the bill.

Ian Wilder
Director
Clovelly Consulting