Acas has published its statistics for Employment Tribunals between April 2017 and December 2017;
- 1,700 notifications were received each week between the start of April 2017 and the end of July 2017. In July 2017, the Supreme Court ruled there would no longer be fees to bring a case to tribunal. There has, since seen a significant increase in the number of notifications, this is now at approx 2,200 notifications per week.
- When contact is initially made with ACAS Early Conciliation is offered and used by both parties, this has been in place over the last few years with the aim to reduce the number of cases been taken directly to tribunal. Between April 2017 and December 2017 the Early Conciliation has succeeded in 17% of cases. Of the balance, 26% progressed to a tribunal and 58% did not. (A business can often settle at this stage due to commercial and cost reasons).
- of those claims that proceeded to tribunal, 21% subsequently settled via a COT3 agreement (settled before reaching tribunal), 5% were withdrawn by the Claimant (before getting to tribunal), 7% have been determined by a tribunal and 67% remain outstanding.
If you receive information from ACAS about a case for your business, always ask for advice from a HR Professional or an employment law specialist. If you have the opportunity to settle because moving to tribunal it is worth considering depending on the case and the circumstances. Tribunals can be very expense and time consuming, it must be a key factor when decided the right next steps.
