ACAS early conciliation - timescales?

[Guest]

Hi there,

I am currently going through ACAS Early Conciliation with my previous employer. I requested this from
ACAS on 5th May online, spoke to an advisor on 6th May who agreed to pass the case to a conciliator. The conciliator got in touch with me on the 7th May to confirm they had contacted my previous employer that day and would be back in touch once they had heard from them.

It’s now been 2 weeks since they contacted my employer and I haven’t heard back. What are the usual timescales for this sort of thing? Does the employer have to respond in X amount of day or can they just ignore completely? Could the delay be that the conciliator is negotiating on my behalf? I’m not sure if it’s a good sign or not that I haven’t heard anything. My previous employer is a large Local Authority so I would expect them to reply one way or another.

Many thanks

[ULA]

Early Conciliation (EC) is available for one month, which can be extended by a further two weeks if there is a possibility that a settlement can be reached in that time. If at either the end of a month or the extended period settlement has not been reached the a EC certificate is provided the details of which are needed for completion of the ET1 form should you decide to pursue your claim at the Employment Tribunal.

It may be worth a phone call to the conciliator to find out if the LA is engaging with the process or not.