New rules for Employment Tribunals

From October 2004 there will be a new set of rules governing the practice and procedure of the Employment Tribunals. They are expressed to be in "plain English" to make the system easy to use.

The key reforms are as follows:

• There will be standard forms for employees and employers to complete. Beware as from the 6 April 2005 these will become mandatory so if your claim or response is not on one of these forms it will not be accepted.
• A claim will also not be accepted if it does not include all the relevant information required.
• In circumstances where an employee's complaint does not relate to a dismissal the Tribunal will not accept an application if the employee has not previously raised a grievance in writing. In these circumstances the Tribunal will inform the employee of the relevant time limits to enable the employee to raise a grievance before making a claim.
• The employer's time for responding to a claim will be changed to 28 days from the date the copy of the claim was sent to the employer by the Tribunal.
• Extensions of time for an employer submitting a response will only be in limited circumstances.
• The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) will only be able to help negotiate claims in a fixed period for the majority of cases to encourage parties to settle early rather than just before a hearing. The fixed period will either be a 7 or 13 weeks depending on the nature of the case. In certain complex cases the fixed periods will not apply.
• Where a case is uncontested, the tribunal will have the power to make determinations against an employer without the need for a hearing.
• In addition to the existing rules on costs, the Tribunal will gain the power to award costs in respect of the preparation time spent by an unrepresented employee or employer.

Guidance on the new rules is available on: www.dti.gov.uk

Carol Shaw
Partner

23 August 2004