Early conciliation has long been a mandatory stage before most employment tribunal claims can be lodged. The rationale is to facilitate dialogue, narrow issues, and resolve disputes without the cost, delay and friction of litigation. Yet, demand for the service has risen sharply.
Why the change now?
The early conciliation extension comes against a backdrop of sharply rising tribunal workloads. Employment tribunal statistics show that by September 2025, the open caseload had increased by 33% year‑on‑year since COVID-19, with 52,000 open single claims and a total of 515,000 active claims across single and multiple cases.
Increased public awareness of employment rights, legislative expansion with the Employments Rights Act 2025 coming into force, and broader economic pressures on employers and employees are all factors contributing to more disputes being raised. Additional factors such as employees pursuing claims through generative AI tools may also be contributing to an ongoing increase in early conciliation notifications, adding to the pressure on conciliators. As a result, some public sector employers have found that initial contact from a conciliator did not occur until very late in the former six‑week conciliation window.
Despite managing an exceptionally demanding workload, Acas continues to play a vital stabilising role. Published Acas data shows that 68% of early conciliation notifications did not progress to tribunal in April–June 2025, reflecting the continuing importance of conciliation even against rising volumes (Early conciliation and employment tribunal data for England, Scotland, and Wales: April to June 2025 | Acas). Policymakers hope that extending the early conciliation window will ease the strain caused by increased case volumes and resource constraints. The intention behind a longer conciliation window is therefore pragmatic to create space for fuller conversations, better‑planned negotiations, and earlier, more effective settlements.
What the extension means for public sector employers
For Government and public sector organisations, often dealing with large, unionised or multi‑layered workforces, the extension presents both opportunity and operational challenge.
On the positive side, the additional time may support more constructive settlement discussions and reduce the number of claims escalating unnecessarily. Some employers also find that claimants’ losses become clearer as time passes, meaning settlement negotiations can be more grounded.
However, employers should be mindful that the early conciliation period “pauses the clock” on limitation deadlines, which may result in longer periods of uncertainty. Combined with the reform to extend limitation periods to bring claims to an employment tribunal from three to six months no earlier than October 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025, some disputes may not surface until many months after the underlying events.
Any employer anticipating a claim should consider taking steps to prepare its defence early, such as compiling documents and taking witness statements, rather than wait until case management deadlines are set which could be a long time after the claim is raised. Doing so will help secure evidence when events are fresh in the minds of witnesses and avoid the loss of important evidence, for example if witnesses leave the organisation or email trails become more difficult to access, which is more likely with the passage of time.
Sources:
1 December 2025: Acas Early Conciliation will be extended by up to 12 weeks - Lexology
If you need any assistance in relation to the issues raised in this update, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Authored by Mark Dimitri.
