ABSTRACT
Tribunals take decisions by a majority; in practice, decisions are usually unanimous. The lay members bring to the tribunal their experience of industrial relations; those on the panel of Acas arbitrators have been appointed for their experience of industrial relations. There are key differences in the decision-making process:
• the employment tribunal, in determining the issue of fairness, must operate within the formula of the ‘range of reasonable responses’;50
• the arbitrator applies the statutory terms of reference, which embrace an industrial relations concept of fairness;51
• neither is entitled to substitute his view by determining the issue of fairness by the standard of what he would have done.52
