Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effect of proposed changes to Acas on (a) maintaining the functions of the service, (b) office closures and (c) job losses; and if he will make a statement.

Acas is committed to maintaining the service it provides during this 12-18 month period of change and will continue to monitor performance standards to ensure that this is the case.

The business change programme involves the closure of a single office (Liverpool) in the only economic region in Great Britain which had two Acas offices – the other one is located in Manchester. The closure will not result in any significant reduction in overall staff numbers.