In brief

The government has announced changes to the employment tribunal rules of procedure, which will take effect from 8 October 2020.  These changes are intended to boost capacity in the tribunal system, given the backlog of cases to be heard.

In addition, the standard period for pre-claim early conciliation by Acas between employer and employee will be extended to six weeks (rather than one month, with a possible extension of another two weeks) from 1 December 2020.

The changes will include:

  • More flexibility for remote hearings, allowing more cases to be heard, including making clear that in some cases it is not reasonably practicable for members of the public to hear what the tribunal hears, or to see a witness as seen by the tribunal
  • New 'legal officers' (who do not have to be legally qualified) will carry out administrative tasks currently performed by employment judges. These include considering acceptance or rejection of claim forms, extending time for employers to respond, ordering further information to be provided and dismissing claims by consent upon withdrawal
  • Non-employment judges from other tribunals may be deployed to hear cases in employment tribunals 
  • Amendments to the early conciliation and employment tribunal rules to allow greater flexibility to correct minor errors, such as typographical mistakes when copying the number on an early conciliation process certificate to the tribunal claim form
  • Multiple claimants and respondents will be allowed to use the same forms where reasonable when filing claims or responses to claims at the employment tribunal, to avoid multiple forms and time limits in what is essentially the same dispute.  However, the early conciliation process will remain unchanged in these cases
  • Where an employer does not file a response to a claim form, but an employment judge considers they cannot rule on it without a preliminary hearing (for example, to decide the employment status of the claimant, or whether they have a disability as defined in the Equality Act 2010), the judge can issue their decision on the full case after that preliminary hearing with no need for a further hearing
  • A new rule that the final hearing in a case cannot be fewer than 14 days before the employer's response is due to be submitted to the tribunal
  • Providing a further incentive to parties to settle claims by providing that decisions recording claims have been dismissed following withdrawal will not be included on the register, and therefore not searchable on the tribunal decisions government website.
  • There will be a six week early conciliation period in all cases, instead of a one month period with the possibility to extend it by two weeks.