Acas today sets out its plans for implementing the Government’s proposal to introduce fixed period conciliation in most employment tribunal claims with effect from October 2004.
When an individual puts in a claim to an employment tribunal Acas has a statutory duty to try and help the parties to reach an agreement without the need for a tribunal hearing. Acas is already very successful at this - this year around 77 per cent of claims were settled or withdrawn before reaching the employment tribunal stage.
Currently Acas can conciliate in tribunal claims right up to the date of the hearing, and many cases are not settled until the last moment. By then considerable tribunal resource has been spent preparing for a hearing which does not take place. The new proposals aim to encourage
parties who wish to settle to do so at an earlier stage, and so save tribunal resource wasted in this way under the present system.
The Department of Trade and Industry has issued draft regulations on the proposals for public consultation. The regulations would limit the period of time during which Acas has a duty to conciliate to seven weeks for fast-track claims and thirteen weeks for most other claims (see www.dti.gov.uk/er for details).
At the same time Acas is consulting separately to explain why it will only conciliate outside the fixed period in exceptional circumstances, and to invite comment from regular users of its conciliation services.
Acas Chief Executive John Taylor said:
The regulations are designed to concentrate the minds of parties on reaching an agreement as quickly as possible by limiting the conciliation period. At Acas we believe it is in everyone’s best interests to resolve employment problems at the earliest opportunity.
In future we will only be able to conciliate after the fixed period in exceptional circumstances. We hope that will help people to focus their efforts on reaching a settlement during the fixed period.
ACAS consults on implementing new pre-employment tribunal process
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