Greater demand for early intervention in workplace disputes

Recent figures released by Acas have revealed that demand for Acas' early dispute resolution service, Pre-Claim Conciliation (PCC), rose by a third (34%) in 2011/12, meaning that Acas dealt with 23,777 cases, 6000 more cases than the previous year. This has resulted in thousands of people avoiding the need to go to an employment tribunal.

Pre-Claim Conciliation was launched in April 2009 and aims to resolve workplace problems before they result in a costly and stressful employment tribunal claim.

The success of PCC has led to the Government proposing that anyone intending to make an employment tribunal claim should come to Acas first. The new service, called early conciliation, will start from 2014.

Additionally, the number of claims Acas received for conciliation after an employment tribunal claim had been lodged dropped by 3% to 72,075. Unfair dismissal continues to be the most common reason for individual conciliation cases.

This year's annual report by Acas also revealed that:

• The Acas website received more than four and a half million visits - 400,000 more than the previous year a rise of 9.5% on last year.
• The Acas helpline answered almost 925,000 calls on employment issues such as the Agency Workers Regulations. The top three issues were: discipline, dismissal and grievances; redundancies, lay offs and business transfers; and contracts.