Tuesday, 10.11.2015

Launch Event: ICE and Voice 10 years on

The Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations, introduced in April 2005, were heralded as a significant opportunity to promote employee participation at work.

However, they did not have the impact many had hoped. The IPA and FES hosted a launch discussion for the recently published report “ICE & Voice, 10 years on”. The large audience representing academics, businesses, trade unions, NGOs and civil society vigorously discussed how the ICE Regulations impacted on the UK workplace, what factors limited this impact and how information and consultation works in other EU member states.

Since voice at the workplace in the UK is performing poorly and a decline in union membership can be observed, concern about employee engagement, satisfaction, wellbeing as well as businesses productivity and performance are at stake. The panel put a reform at EU level up for discussion that would strengthen the regulations. There are also ways how the ICE regulations could be reformed at the national level, as the report shows. This includes reducing the 10 % trigger of a business’s personnel to set up a consultation platform and allow employees to engage.