Acas Early Conciliation: First Year Statistics

Acas has now published statistics showing the impact of the first year of Early Conciliation (EC).  The key statistics include:

• 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.

Of the EC cases dealt with you may like to note the following:

• 63% of cases did not proceed to a tribunal claim;
• 15% of cases resulted in a formal COT3 settlement;
• 22% of cases progressed to a tribunal claim; and
• of the 22% in which a claim was issued, more than half (51%) subsequently settled by way of an Acas COT3.

You can read many things into the figures but it is clearly the case that the tribunal fee regime has had a big impact on both the tribunals and Acas – their work loads are going in the opposite directions.

We are expecting the outcome of the recent union led judicial review into the fees regime. We will keep you posted.

For further information, help or advice please contact Tim Davies on 0191 211 7927 or [email protected]