ACAS will not limit conciliation in age discrimination cases – News – agediscrimination.info

Despite an apparent lacuna in the age regulations, ACAS will provide a full conciliation service in age discrimination claims.

Under employment tribunals rules (see rule 22, schedule 1 of the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2004)) ACAS officers are obliged to seek to help parties reach a settlement of the claim. The length of this obligation varies depending on the type of claim. There us no fixed conciliation period for discrimination claims, a short conciliation period of 7 weeks for “straightforward claims” and a “standard conciliation period” of 13 weeks for other claims.

ACAS has the power to conciliate once the fixed conciliation period has expired, but is under no duty to do so.

Because of the way the age discrimination regulations have been drafted, ACAS believes that unlike other forms of discrimination, they will only be obliged to seek to conciliate for a limited period of 13 weeks. However, they have announced their intention to exercise their power to continue to conciliate in all age discrimination claims which are not resolved within the first 13 weeks.

Click here to see a letter setting out ACAS’ position on this.

Back to top