What is Acas Early Conciliation, and how does it actually work?

If you’re thinking about bringing an employment tribunalAn independent court that hears disputes between employees and employers. It is free to bring a claim as a claimant, and most hearings take place in public. claim, you almost always have to contact AcasThe Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. A public body that provides free, impartial guidance on workplace rights and disputes, and runs the mandatory early conciliation process before any ... for Early ConciliationA free process run by ACAS that you must go through before you can submit a claim to an employment tribunal. ACAS contacts your employer to see if a settlement can be reached, and the process pauses y... first. Skipping it isn’t an option, and it has a real effect on your tribunal deadline. What follows walks through how it actually works, from first contact to the certificate at the end.

What Early Conciliation actually is

Early Conciliation is a free service run by Acas, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. Before you can submit most types of employment tribunal claim, you have to notify Acas first. An Acas conciliator then contacts your employer to see whether the dispute can be resolved without going to tribunal at all, whether that’s through an apology, a change in treatment, a payment, or some other agreed outcome.

It isn’t mediation in the sense of sitting both sides down together, or legal advice. The conciliator’s role is limited to facilitating a possible settlement between you and your employer. If no agreement is reached, or either side doesn’t want to engage, the process ends and you’re free to proceed to tribunal.

Is it actually mandatory?

Yes, for almost all tribunal claims. The main exceptions are narrow: you’re applying for interim relief following an unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... (these are urgent, time-critical applications with their own separate rules), someone else bringing the same claim already has a certificate covering you, your employer has already contacted Acas about the dispute themselves, your claim is against the security services, or your claim type simply isn’t one Acas has the power to conciliate on. Outside of those, you cannot submit a tribunal claim without first notifying Acas and getting an Early Conciliation certificate. Submitting a claim without one, when one was required, will usually mean the tribunal rejects it outright.

How to start it

You can notify Acas in whichever way suits you: most people do it online, but post or direct contact work just as well. Either way, Acas will ask for your and your employer’s details, plus a brief description of the dispute. There’s no fee. Once you notify Acas, they’ll assign a conciliator who contacts both sides to explain the process and find out whether either party wants to engage.

How long it takes

Early Conciliation runs for up to six weeks. If both sides agree, that period can be extended once, by up to two weeks. In practice, many cases resolve or conclude well before the six weeks are up, particularly if one side isn’t interested in engaging at all. Missing a tribunal time limit doesn’t always mean your discrimination claim is over covers what happens if you’re close to your deadline when this process starts or ends.

What you get at the end: the certificate

Whether or not a settlement is reached, Acas issues an Early Conciliation certificate once the process concludes. This certificate, and its reference number, is required to submit a tribunal claim. Keep it safe. You’ll need to enter its number on your claim form (the ET1), and a claim submitted without it, where a certificate was required, will usually be rejected.

The effect on your tribunal deadline

This is the part that catches people out, because your tribunal time limitThe deadline by which you must submit a claim to an employment tribunal. For most claims the limit is three months less one day from the act you are complaining about, and it is strictly enforced. Mis... doesn’t simply pause while Early Conciliation runs. The clock stops on the day you notify Acas, and starts again the day after your certificate is issued. That can genuinely buy you extra time. It cannot revive a deadline that had already passed before you notified Acas. If you’re unsure how many days you actually have left once conciliation ends, it’s worth working it out precisely rather than guessing, since the standard three-month limit is enforced strictly.

What if you don’t want to settle, or your employer won’t engage?

That’s fine, and common. Early Conciliation doesn’t require either side to agree to anything, or to negotiate against their own interests just to move things along. If your employer doesn’t respond or declines to engage, Acas will conclude the process and issue your certificate so you can proceed. Engaging honestly, even briefly, is worth doing regardless, since it can occasionally resolve things faster and more simply than a tribunal claim would.

Where this fits in the wider process

Early Conciliation is a mandatory first step. It is separate from the tribunal claim itself. Once you have your certificate, Employment tribunal claims: what the statistics actually tell you covers what actually happens if you proceed. What a settlement agreement is and how it works covers what a negotiated settlement looks like instead.