A voluntary I and C agreement gives you more flexibility over how you choose to inform and consult your workforce. You can tailor the arrangements to suit the needs and structure of your business. For example, you might prefer to inform and consult over some issues at individual company level and others at a group level.
It may be more difficult to achieve such objectives under the statutory process. You would still have some flexibility if you are forced down the statutory negotiating route, but you may find it more time consuming, complicated and costly to achieve than if you began voluntarily. The statutory process must also be completed within strict timescales.
Where your employees trigger the statutory negotiating process but you fail to reach agreement (or where an employer fails to negotiate at all), the legislation imposes ‘standard’ I and C arrangements.
The standard arrangements are particularly inflexible. For example, the requirement to have 1 representative per 50 employees (subject to a maximum of 25) can produce unwieldy and ineffective committees. Also, it is not possible to have an I and C arrangement that covers a whole group of companies. Each undertaking in the group would have to have its own forum to consider all topics, even those issues which might best be dealt with at group level.
Also, voluntary agreements do not have to be legally enforceable, whereas the establishment and operation of negotiated agreements, or the standard information and consultation provisions imposed in the event of a failure to agree, are legally binding and so open to legal challenges before both the Central Arbitration Committee and the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).