ELA’s responses to government and other bodies' consultations are organised through working parties drawn from the ELA membership, overseen by the committee.
Working parties are made up of representatives from the diverse sectors of our membership – barristers, solicitors who represent both employers and employees, members from the voluntary, public and private sectors and trade unions. Our members work together to analyse proposed legislation, consider how it will work in practice and suggest ways to improve it. We are not concerned by what is helpful to employers or employees.
The L&P committee has a number of standing committees dealing with the following issues:
City regulation & employment law
Sexual harrassment
How to get involved in consultation responses
When an appropriate opportunity arises to join a working party to respond to a new consultation, we send out an email alert to members inviting expressions of interest for that particular consultation. Current consultation opportunities are also listed in the current consultations section. Some consultations receive a high volume of interest, so it is not always possible to take everyone who volunteers. However, we try to share out the opportunities as much as possible.
A typical working party will organise its work by sharing out the consultation questions amongst the working party members. In this way, the work can be shared out evenly, and members can volunteer to take on as much or as little as they feel able to at the time. Each working party member will then draft a response to the question(s) they have agreed to take on, within the agreed timetable. The submission deadlines are often quite tight, so it is vital that everyone keeps to the timetable. The chair of the working party (who is almost always drawn from the committee) will then pull the individual submissions together and edit them for consistency, ensuring that our submissions are politically neutral and address the concerns of both employees and employers.
How to join the committee
We receive a large number of applications from ELA members to join the L&P committee. It is very encouraging that there is such enthusiasm for this important part of ELA’s work. We are able to involve large numbers of members in our legislative work through the consultation responses. As a result, the committee recruits only from members of its working parties who have shown commitment and made a tangible contribution to our legislative work.