2. Acas is a statutory, non-departmental public body with a duty to improve employment relations in Great Britain. Acas has considerable practical experience of the dynamics of the workplace and of the issues experienced by both individuals and employers in the wide range of working arrangements in the modern labour market. In 2016/17, Acas handled almost 900,000 calls from individuals and employers to its national helpline and dealt with over 500,000 queries online. It provided conciliation in 744 collective disputes, received 92,000 notifications to its early conciliation service, and its network of locally-based advisers trained nearly 37,000 individuals on a wide range of workplace-related topics.