ACAS Pre-claim conciliation aims to resolve disputes and prevent claims from proceeding to a tribunal. ACAS itself stands for the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. They are an independent public body that receives funding from the government.
Employees must take early conciliation before they submit a claim against their employer to an Employment Tribunal.
Employees are required to inform ACAS of their intention to bring a claim. Their role is to try to resolve the matter without proceeding to a tribunal and instead bring about an ACAS early conciliation payout.
Early conciliation is crucial because it is an opportunity to resolve a dispute where internal proceedings, such as the grievance procedure, have not addressed the issue.
Whether or not you want to participate in early conciliation, you must inform Avensure if you receive contact from an ACAS conciliator.
Informing ACAS of the intention to bring a claim is mandatory, but there is no obligation to participate in early conciliation.
Employees cannot submit a tribunal claim without informing ACAS of their intentions.
No. In the same way that it is not mandatory for employees, employers do not have to participate. Still, as stated above, you do need to inform Avensure if you receive a request to participate in early conciliation.
The stages of the ACAS pre-conciliation process for an employee are as follows:
(Source acas.org.uk)
The good news is that as your legal representatives, we offer an ACAS early conciliation service and will liaise on your behalf.
Our in-house legal team will contact the ACAS conciliator. We may need more information from you first, and then we will liaise with you to see if a settlement can be reached.
Whilst ACAS can’t advise on the case specifics or whether entering into a settlement is advisable, we can. Of course, we will not agree to anything without your consent.
If both parties have agreed to settle the dispute (which doesn’t always mean a financial payout), a settlement form, known as a COT3 agreement, is drawn up.
This legally binding document, signed by both the employer and the employee, sets out the terms of the settlement agreement.
If the case has been settled and a COT3 signed, the employee cannot pursue their claim to an employment tribunal.
Points to note:
ACAS conciliators are not on either ‘side’. They are not there to insist or impart their judgement on the merits or weaknesses of a claim or whether either side should accept any resolutions being offered.
You must submit an ACAS claim within strict timescales. Usually, that time limit is three months, but some claims have a more extended submission deadline. ACAS pre-claim conciliation notifications will have a deadline of around one month.
If the pre-conciliation process fails to reach an agreement between the parties, they will proceed to formal conciliation or arbitration. It’s worth remembering that a failure to reach an agreement using the ACAS early conciliation service could result in a legal case being initiated. All avenues to resolve a disagreement must be exhausted using conciliation dispute resolution before litigation.
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