The month of May was annual review time in Acas and I have been conducting interviews accordingly with our directors. When you are blessed with good colleagues, it’s difficult not to take them a little bit for granted. This last month has allowed me to take stock of just how much hard teamwork has been undertaken over the last year by everyone in Acas.

I've not long returned from visiting Botswana at the request of the Foreign Office. Botswana has recently signed up to all of the conventions of the International Labour Office and its government was seeking guidance on how to deal with a newly-unionised public sector. I spent two days in Gaborone (or “Gabs” as it is known to the locals) sharing the UK experience, with colleagues from Australia and Canada also contributing - a real commonwealth effort. I was able to get in a couple of game drives and was really lucky to see a pack of wild dogs hunting antelope, and lions with a buffalo kill - now that was real teamwork.

May also saw the retirement of Jerry Gibson, our director for London. Jerry and I started at Acas in April 1975 when the world consisted of “industrial” rather than “employment relations” and trade union general secretaries were as famous as premier league footballers – but, of course, not as well paid and never as anonymous!