Another month, another government consultation - or so it seems. No sooner does one consultation period around an important area of employment law end, than another often overlapping one commences - and before government has indicated its reaction to the first.

Members of the Employment Lawyers Association (ELA), whether advising employers or employees, have been united in wishing this (and other) government(s) would resist the temptation for quick-fixes and headlines where employment law is concerned. So many government departments now have a finger in the employment pie that it’s no wonder this area of law has become arcane and bewildering.

Just recently we were asked to respond to two time-limited government consultations seeking to simplify current systems - the Red Tape Challenge (RTC) and the ‘Flexible, effective, fair: promoting economic growth through a strong and efficient labour market’ consultation (FEF).

In our view it is not necessarily the basic law that’s the problem but the fact that, in their eagerness to be seen to act to help business or employees, successive governments have conducted ‘policy legislation by elastoplast’ creating a bewildering mishmash of regulation. Government needs to take a long, hard look at its own practices before it tinkers further.

We believe responsibility for employment law should be centralised in one government department, not split across Whitehall as it is now (Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Ministry of Justice, Home Office - all have responsibility for areas of employment law and practice).

Employment law should be drafted carefully - not sloppily - with the intention of it being clear to employees and employers when they are operating within the law. This is not the case at present. Government and government agencies should take special care in drafting guidance on new law, keeping it simple and clear and providing case study examples to illustrate points, to assist in understanding.

They should resist proposing changes to areas of law that are already the subject of consultations in respect of which the government’s response has yet to appear. ELA is still waiting for a response from government to the consultation paper on ‘Resolving Workplace Disputes’, but now we have these two new consultations covering similar areas and issues.

Many believe that the argument that removing what is described as ‘red tape’ will encourage employers to start recruiting is misguided and wrong. In their view, employers will recruit according to the operational needs of their business; tweaking employment law will not influence those decisions. However, government could make a dramatic difference if it took the harder, less glamorous approach of achieving a culture of careful initial drafting and systematic rationalisation rather than piling regulation upon regulation; single-department overview and the production of well-drafted business and consumer-friendly guidance. In that way they would win plaudits all round.

In the FEF consultation, government asked what more could be done to reduce the fear factor in employing staff, particularly the first member of staff that a business takes on.

If there is a ‘fear factor’, it is more likely to stem from frequently changing, rushed legislation giving employers little time to digest what must be done. Keep things simple. Government should only make changes that are really necessary and ensure those changes do not conflict with existing legislation.

In relation to the Red Tape Challenge and what should be reviewed, ELA believes that the rapid turnover of civil servants is a real problem. This strips departments of valuable expertise and leads to a generalist rather than specialist approach to regulation.

Also, it is time for some ‘joined-up’ government. The disjointed responsibilities of various government departments for different aspects of employment law really doesn’t help.

Finally, more time needs to be spent on working up proposals for new law or policy in the early stages to get it right. The rush to publish proposals to win good headlines only leads to poor outcomes.

Joanne Owers is chair of the Employment Lawyers Association