Chambers of commerce bid to help small businesses cope with employment law and cut insurance pay-outs
The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is to test a project to reduce employment legal claims with Composite Legal Expenses (CLE).
The web-based human resources initiative has been developed in conjunction with IT company Oracle. It will provide companies with an online employment law and human resources service.
This will help small businesses reduce their exposure to employee litigation and potentially damaging insurance pay-outs
BCC head of business development Kathy Rilley said: "We have been looking at how we can help SMEs improve productivity and cope with the bureaucratic challenges in the marketplace, such as stakeholder pensions.
"It will bring together a number of services into a single package.
"In its basic form the service acts as an employee records service, and enables businesses to check legislation and access legal documents. It is a complete support package."
CLE will provide legal documents and a helpline service.
The BCC already works with CLE as a legal expenses insurance provider for it members.
Rilley said that the move to develop an HR product was a result of the large number of employment-related questions received by CLE's legal helpline
"The product will be launched towards the end of the year to the whole market starting with BCC members."
CLE managing director John Mullin said: "We will do much of the work that brokers feel they cannot do. It is a pretty dramatic initiative. We will do everything for them."
The initiative will be launched at the Biba conference in May.
