Acas data on tribunal disputes

According to conciliation and employment tribunal data just published by Acas, the largest proportion of employment tribunal discrimination cases it received from April to September 2023 were on grounds of disability, race, or sex.

These are cases which have reached the point of potential or actual tribunal claims. As Acas points out, these disputes can be costly for all concerned, both in terms of stress and finance. Indeed, research carried out in 2021 showed that individual conflict – both inside the workplace and through to tribunal claims – costs UK organisations in the region of £28.5 billion a year.

If a case is not resolved by early conciliation, the claimant can submit an ET1 form to make a claim to an employment tribunal. The largest number of individual cases were open track – that is, the most legally complex cases involving at least one type of discrimination or whistleblowing claim. These more complex cases made up almost 50 per cent of employment tribunal claims of all ET1 receipts in both April to June and July to September 2023.

Most employment tribunal cases (76 per cent) during this period did not, however, progress to a tribunal hearing. Open-track cases were the most likely not to progress, with fast-track cases (straightforward cases mostly relating to money, such as unpaid wages) being the most likely to carry on to a hearing.

Acas settled around 73 per cent of the cases that did not progress to the tribunal from April to June and 69 per cent from July to September, with the remaining ones being withdrawn by the claimant.

According to data covering the period from April to September 2023, Acas received just over 50,000 early conciliation cases, which is the step before a dispute goes to an employment tribunal; and 886 group cases, covering 40,624 people. 

Calls made to the Acas helpline for each quarter of 2023 so far have been higher than for any quarter in 2022. Calls about redundancies, lay-offs and business transfers to the helpline were up 20 per cent in in the second quarter of this time last year, with the proportion of those referencing insolvency higher than either the previous quarter or the same quarter last year.

It is unclear whether these events will translate into individual disputes, but Acas is alerted to the possibility that they might.

To read the data in more detail, click here.