The Government has, today, published the draft Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemptions and Rules of Procedure) (Amendment) Regulations 2025.
The Regulations, which are due to come into force from 1st December 2025 would increase the ACAS early conciliation window from six weeks to twelve weeks.
The new time window will apply for all claims where early conciliation is commenced on or after 1st December 2025.
Given that employers are increasingly finding that Acas’s overwhelmed early conciliation function is not contacting them at all during the current conciliation period, this change, when combined with the Employment Rights Bill’s proposals to extend the primary tribunal time limit to six months, and day 1 right to claim unfair dismissal, could result in employers being unaware of potential claims for nine months or even, with administrative delays at the tribunal’s end, a year.
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