Major change to ACAS early conciliation process: what employers need to know

November 11, 2025

Major change to ACAS early conciliation process: what employers need to know

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By Owen John

Read time: 4 minutes

With an announcement last week of a major change to the ACAS pre-Employment Tribunal early conciliation process, our employment law expert Owen examines the far-reaching effects this will have on employment disputes and outlines top tips for employers.

What is early conciliation and why is it so important?

ACAS provides the “early conciliation” service, which is the process all employees need to go through before starting an Employment Tribunal claim against their employer. Employees can either choose to obtain a certificate and bring the process to an end on day 1, or go through a 6-week conciliation period. During this period, a conciliator will help the parties to discuss settlement, which will avoid the need for the dispute to progress to an Employment Tribunal claim if successful.

ACAS has reported receiving over 124,000 early conciliation notifications in 2023-24. Of those, only 43,000 became issued Employment Tribunal claims. This suggests that early conciliation is often managing to resolve disputes without the need for parties to incur the cost of Tribunal litigation.

Why are changes needed?

Due to a spiralling number of claims in 2025, ACAS has faced significant pressure on the early conciliation process which has resulted in:

• Late appointment of conciliators – many parties have been unable to utilise the process as the 6-week period ends before they are allocated a conciliator. Many parties have experienced a conciliator not contacting them until after the 6-week period has expired.
• Delayed notification to employers – ACAS has been unable to contact employers to tell them about the employee’s claim until a short period before the process ends or even after the process has already ended.

In its latest figures, ACAS reported around a 26% increase in individual early conciliation claims in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. It is thought that this increase partly stems from employees’ increasing use of AI to obtain “legal advice” and to draft grievances, which can cause unrealistic expectations of settlement packages.

What changes have been announced?

It was announced on 5 November 2025 that the ACAS early conciliation period will now be doubled from 6 to 12 weeks for all claims submitted on or after 1 December 2025.

This major change will have far-reaching effects on employment disputes.

Why is this so significant for employers?

All Employment Tribunal claims have limitation periods by which time an employee needs to have issued a claim to the Tribunal. During the early conciliation process, the limitation clock is paused, and starts again when the process concludes. Employees then have a certain further period (normally 1 month, depending on the dates on which conciliation was started) to submit a claim to the Employment Tribunal.

The extension means that, if the process runs for the full 12 weeks, the limitation clock is stopped for twice as long. When coupled with planned increases to limitation periods from 3 to 6 months under the Employment Rights Bill, this will mean that employees could have up to 10 months in total to submit a claim to the Employment Tribunal after a dismissal, act of discrimination or other breach of employment law.

This is likely to increase the number of Employment Tribunal claims. With the Employment Tribunal system already under significant pressure, many cases may take years to reach a conclusion.

Will the change lead to more settlements?

The change is designed to help ACAS become effective during the conciliation process, ensuring it has more time to get in contact with both parties to discuss settlement.

However, it is unlikely that the change will lead to a significant increase in the number of settlements. Instead, it’s likely that settlement discussions will take place later, and that any Employment Tribunal claims will be brought later as a result.

What do employers need to do about this?

Employers will need to be prepared to deal with a greater number of early conciliation claims and potentially more Employment Tribunal disputes. The following are our top tips for employers:

• Review your record retention periods after dismissals. It could now be around a year before you are told that an Employment Tribunal claim has been made against you. Ensure that any documents and communications with your former employees are retained for long enough after dismissals that you can use them to respond to a claim if needed.
• This also applies to recruitment processes, as job applicants can bring claims for discrimination and the same time limits will apply to them. Many employers only keep records of job applications for 6 months after the process – this may need to be revisited.
• Prevent disputes from arising in the first place. Make sure that you get your dismissal processes right and train your managers and leaders on avoiding discrimination and dealing effectively with grievances. This is the best way to avoid Employment Tribunal claims.
• Take legal advice. Our expert employment law solicitors can advise you on whether and how to settle a dispute, or whether to wait and see whether an Employment Tribunal claim is submitted if the employee has unrealistic expectations.

If you need advice on an employment law dispute, get in touch using our contact form or contact Owen on ojohn@darwingray.com or on 029 2082 9118 to find out how we can help you.