From 1 December, the Acas early conciliation period was extended from six to twelve weeks. The intention was clear: to ease growing administrative pressures on Acas at a time of rising demand. But while the extension may give Acas more breathing space, it raises a broader question for employers and employees alike – does more time meaningfully improve early resolution, or does it simply prolong uncertainty in a system already struggling to cope?
Early conciliation was designed with simplicity in mind – a quick, informal way to encourage dialogue before litigation. The idea was to help parties resolve matters early, without the time and expense of a Tribunal claim. Before a claim can be filed, a claimant must contact Acas, which then has a duty to promote conciliation during the early conciliation period.
Yet over time, what began as an opportunity for swift settlement has become another stage in an already slow process. Too often, parties wait through all or most of the conciliation window without meaningful engagement, emerging no closer to resolution than when they began. Increasingly, practitioners reported that Acas makes no contact at all during the six-week window, with certificates being issued automatically once time expires. In some cases, conciliators were only allocated if there appeared to be a realistic prospect of settlement, something which, with respect, cannot realistically be assessed from hearing only the claimant’s side of the story.
The goal of early conciliation remains sound: to resolve disputes before they escalate. But conciliation only works when both parties have the opportunity engage and when Acas has the resources to support it. At present, the process appears to be straining under the weight of demand, delay and limited resource. Extending the period without addressing these fundamentals risks merely deferring disputes rather than resolving them.
Recent Acas data reflects this pressure. In April-June 2025, 68% of early conciliation notifications did not progress to an ET1. However, of the Tribunal claims that were issued in the same quarter, 79% (4 out of 5) did not progress to a full hearing, underscoring the number of disputes that settle late or are withdrawn only after time and cost has already been incurred. Taken together, these figures underline the challenge of maintaining meaningful engagement within the current framework.
A system already struggling to cope
The pressure extends far beyond Acas. Employment Tribunals remain heavily backlogged, with some hearings now being listed years in advance – one of our own cases is scheduled for 2028.
This means employees face lengthy waits for resolution, while employers too contend with fading memories, departing witnesses, increased costs and prolonged uncertainty. For HR teams, managing unresolved issues over such a period brings obvious challenges, especially if the claimant has not left the respondent’s employment. Justice delayed may or may not end up being justice denied, but on any view, it benefits no one.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 – reform in motion
Meanwhile, the Employment Rights Bill continued to move creakily through Parliament and is now law, albeit with implementation dates stretching well into next year.
The direction of travel is clear: more employees will have more claims open to them. This will inevitably result in a rise in Tribunal claims at a time when the system is already under significant pressure. For the most part those new claims will be of relatively limited value and the cost and delay and distraction they cause therefore increasingly disconnected from the sums at stake.
The Act will also extend limitation periods for bringing claims from three months to six. Once these changes come into force, we will have a twelve-week conciliation period and a six-month limitation period. In practice, that could mean up to nine or ten months between the incident and the employer first learning anything of a claim – nearly a full year.
For employers, that creates real uncertainty and risk. Longer timelines make it harder to investigate effectively and to preserve witness and documentary evidence. For employees, the delay can also make early resolution more difficult to achieve.
Social media and AI – the new frontiers of employment claims
Cultural and technological shifts are also reshaping the employment disputes landscape. Online platforms are now filled with users offering “employment law advice”, often blurring the line between helpful empowerment and damaging misinformation.
This content is influencing behaviour. It encourages more individuals to question workplace decisions and to bring grievances and claims, sometimes based on incomplete or inaccurate information. Confident online delivery makes advice appear credible, and many people, particularly younger audiences, accept it without checking the source. As such information becomes more accessible but less reliable, people are guided more by what they see than what they know.
At the same time, AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Co-Pilot have made it easier for claimants to draft ET1 forms and witness statements themselves. We’re certainly now seeing more AI-assisted grievances and claims, sometimes well-structured, but often lengthy, repetitive, inconsistent or even inaccurate.
While technology can help claimants express their experiences, it also increases cost and complexity for employers. Separating wheat from chaff in lengthy, AI-generated pleadings takes time, and the disconnect between written submissions and later oral evidence can be stark. Our advice has to be that employers take early steps to nail down exactly what facts the employee relies upon in support of each of their allegations. “Early” as in before any investigation process, something akin to the List of Issues which the Employment Tribunal often seeks from the parties to bring order to verbose or scattergun pleadings. As access to tools and information grows, we must ask whether this truly improves access to justice or simply makes it easier to start a claim in a jurisdiction without serious downside for doing so without good cause or in comprehensible form. Maybe that is a question of perspective but wherever you stand on that debate, an early clarificatory meeting which allows the employer to attach facts to allegations and winnow out the AI filler has to be a good thing.
Conclusion – easing pressure or prolonging uncertainty?
Extending the Acas early conciliation period by 6 weeks may, on paper, ease Acas’s administrative burden, at least for 6 weeks. But in practice, it will also prolong uncertainty for both employers and employees. Combined with the proposed reforms under the Employment Rights Act, the system looks set to slow further, with claims taking longer to arise, longer to settle and longer still to fight.
Real progress will come not from more time, but from greater capacity and the reversal of previous cuts to staff and judge numbers and (to a lesser extent) to the ET system’s physical estate. The increased use of CVP and virtual hearings mitigates the latter to some extent, but unless and until AI sits in judgement on full hearings and interim applications (not a happy prospect for anyone), only more hands on deck can really counter those delays.
