Legislation finalised to support launch of Early Conciliation

Regulations outlining how Early Conciliation will work when the service is launched in April have been finalised, laid in Parliament and published.

From April this year anyone thinking of making an Employment Tribunal claim will need to notify Acas first. Acas will offer a new free service called Early Conciliation to try to resolve the dispute quickly without the need for legal action. The new free service will allow an extra month to attempt to resolve the dispute before people hit the deadline for making their claim.

Early conciliation will save employers and employees the stress, cost and anxiety of facing an employment tribunal, says Acas. It will also save taxpayers some of the cost of running the tribunal system.

Acas has been running a similar optional service called Pre-Claim Conciliation (PCC) since 2009. The service deals with around 20,000 cases a year and over three-quarters of these are resolved in a way that does not lead on to a tribunal claim.

Independent research shows that PCC saves employers on average £2,700 in management time and legal costs compared to dealing with an employment tribunal case. The average time to complete a PCC case is just 23 days compared to the months that a tribunal case can take.

If Early Conciliation doesn't resolve the dispute then the claimant will be able to lodge a tribunal claim.

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