(1)There shall continue to be a body called the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (referred to in this Act as ACAS).
(2)ACAS is a body corporate of which the corporators are the members of its Council.
(3)Its functions, and those of its officers and servants, shall be performed on behalf of the Crown, but not so as to make it subject to directions of any kind from any Minister of the Crown as to the manner in which it is to exercise its functions under any enactment.
(4)For the purposes of civil proceedings arising out of those functions the M1Crown Proceedings Act 1947 applies to ACAS as if it were a government department and the M2Crown Suits (Scotland) Act 1857 applies to it as if it were a public department.
(5)Nothing in section 9 of the M3Statistics of Trade Act 1947 (restriction on disclosure of information obtained under that Act) shall prevent or penalise the disclosure to ACAS, for the purposes of the exercise of any of its functions, of information obtained under that Act by a government department.
(6)ACAS shall maintain offices in such of the major centres of employment in Great Britain as it thinks fit for the purposes of discharging its functions under any enactment.