Newsflash: ACAS early conciliation – an update

What do we already know?

On 6 April 2014, ACAS launched a free early conciliation (EC) service for employers and employees. EC became mandatory for most types of Tribunal claims on 6 May 2014 (see our previous updates on EC here).

Since that date ACAS has been publishing quarterly statistics to show use of its service.

What’s new?

ACAS has now published statistics for the entire first year of Early Conciliation.  Including:

• From April 2014 to March 2015 over 83,000 EC cases were dealt with by ACAS; and,
• 75% of employees and employers agreed to try EC.

Of the Early Conciliation notifications received between April and December 2014:

• 63% did not proceed to a Tribunal claim;
• 15% resulted in a formal COT3 settlement; and,
• 22% progressed to a Tribunal claim. However, 51% of these claims were subsequently settled.