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The Chartered Institute's Arbitration and ADR Schemes
Gregory Hunt, 16 November 2004
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country"? may have worked well for JFK in 1961. However, in today's value-for-money society, the question often heard from members of the Institute is "what exactly do I get from the Institute in exchange for my subscription?"
Well, reading this newsletter is one thing but that does make it an expensive publication. In order to answer this question more broadly, Greg Hunt was invited to address the Branch on the progress being made by headquarters in developing business for the Institute's members. Greg is the Head of Business Relationships at Bloomsbury Square and has separated from the Dispute Resolution Services in order to devote himself full time to the promotion of schemes and business for the benefit of the Institute and its members.
Those members already on existing panels had by then received the President's letter informing them of the review and revamp of the existing panels with an invitation to apply for other panels. The snag was that many of us did not know what panels existed or what they did. I think that most of us were surprised to hear of the range and number of arbitration panels already in existence and the work that is being done by Greg and his team to increase this.
For those less familiar with the system, the Institute has set up a number of dispute resolution schemes with major companies, trade associations, etc., through which low cost dispute resolution facilities are offered to their members or customers in the event of a dispute arising between them. The Institute administers these schemes, and the dispute resolvers, usually arbitrators, are appointed from a panel of suitably qualified and experienced members of the Institute. So the good news is, yes, you can get work from the Institute.
The less good news is that many of these schemes live almost in name alone and make very few if any appointments each year. There are panels of highly trained arbitrators waiting breathlessly by the telephone for the call that never comes. And this is where Greg has stepped in. His task is twofold; to bring realism to the moribund panels by pruning membership and expectations and seeking the creation of new and hopefully dynamic schemes to replace them. It is as if each scheme has a limited life span; it is born of hope and enthusiasm and matures, if it is lucky, into a solid and efficient machine for digesting disputes and delivering awards. But then the scheme begins to loose favour, some awards are not what they might be, Watchdog criticises it as an affront to consumer rights and eventually it is abandoned, ignored or replaced by a far more expensive Ombudsman (I have been a member of such a scheme). Such is the cycle of life.
Greg therefore has a dual role; he both supervises the nursing home for ailing schemes and also acts as the midwife bringing the bouncing new schemes into the world of dispute resolution. And some of these new schemes are prodigious; a scheme between Hackney Council and its tenants that may save Council Tax payers £1million per year and one to deal with European timeshare disputes, currently the most numerous source of cross-boarder dispute in the EU, being but two. And we are promised others in the pipeline whose details must remain confidential during negotiations.
I must conclude with both thanks and apologies to Greg. The thanks are for coming to speak to the Branch and for the work he is doing to expand opportunities for members. The apologies are because I lost my notes of his talk and thus this is written from memory and following a brief phone call to Greg. Since neither of us could remember by then exactly what had been said, take this as my best attempt and my apologies to Greg if I have got it wrong. (I am sure that the Editor will grant a right to reply in serious cases).