UK: Forthcoming Changes To ACAS Early Conciliation Timescales

From 1 December 2020, ACAS early conciliation timescales are being extended, as part of a series of moves aimed at simplifying the Employment Tribunal claims process.

ACAS early conciliation requires that, in the vast majority of cases, anyone who intends to bring a claim against their employer must notify ACAS before submitting their claim to the Employment Tribunal. ACAS contacts the potential claimant to determine whether they want to conciliate. If they do, an ACAS representative will discuss with the employee and their employer whether it would be possible to resolve the situation without reverting to litigation. If the potential claimant does not want to conciliate, they will be sent a certificate confirming that they have spoken with ACAS and can then continue to file their claim.

Limitation periods dictate how long a potential claimant has from the date a claim arises, to bring their claim to the Employment Tribunal. For example, for a claim for unfair dismissal, the limitation period is three months less one day from the date employment ended.

Currently, if a party wants to enter conciliation, whilst conciliation talks are ongoing, the limitation period is paused for one month. There is also an option to extend the conciliation period by 14 days if the parties are close to reaching an agreement when the conciliation deadline approaches.

From 1 December 2020 the standard one month conciliation period will be extended to 6 weeks. However, the ability to extend the conciliation period by 14 days will be removed.

Are These Changes Positive?

These changes will help simplify the ACAS conciliation process. However the removal of the ability to extend the conciliation period by 14 days means parties will be required to tightly manage negotiations within the available time, in order to ensure the opportunity to settle a dispute without recourse to the Tribunals is not lost.

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