Since 6 May 2014, anyone wishing to make a claim to an Employment Tribunal (ET) must first notify the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas), so that they can be offered an opportunity to resolve their dispute using its Early Conciliation (EC) scheme and thus avoid the need to go to the ET.
Acas has now published the results of its survey on use of the EC scheme during its first year in operation. These show that:
- Acas handled more than 83,000 EC cases between April 2014 and March 2015;
- Three out of four employees and employers agreed to try EC in its first year of operation; and
- Eight out of ten people who took part in EC were satisfied with the service they received from Acas.
Statistics for EC notifications received between April and December 2014 show that 63 per cent did not proceed to an ET claim, a further 15 per cent resulted in a formal settlement (known as a COT3) and 22 per cent progressed to an ET claim. Of the latter, more than half (51 per cent) were subsequently resolved by Acas.
The full survey can be found here.
The latest conciliation update for the year April 2014 to March 2015 can be found here.