Acas Early Conciliation: First Year Statistics

Acas, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service have published statistics which show the first year of Early Conciliation (EC).

The mandatory Early Conciliation procedure must be followed by Claimants who wish to present claims in the majority of tribunal proceedings on or after 6 May 2014. It was introduced to make the tribunal system more efficient and places a duty on the parties and Acas to attempt early conciliation before a tribunal claim can be issued.

While Early Conciliation is still in its infancy, the statistics below reveal just the impact it has had in the last year:

• Over 83,000 EC cases were dealt with between April 2014 and March 2015, and
• Three out of four Employees and Employers agreed to try EC in its first year.

Of the thousands of Early Conciliation notifications received by Claimants between April 2014 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 (of which 51% subsequently settled by way of a COT3 settlement).

Click here to read more about Acas Early Conciliation.