ACAS Early Conciliation: New Form Rules From 26 November 2026

The early conciliation form that stands between a worker and an employment tribunal claim is about to start asking more questions. The Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemptions and Rules of Procedure) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, SI 2026 No. 1144, were made on 27 October 2026, laid before Parliament on 4 November 2026, and come into force on 26 November 2026.

The instrument rewrites the information a prospective claimant must give ACAS before a claim can be presented. It also lets one form cover several disputes and several employers, allows ACAS to stop short of contacting an employer where it has already concluded that settlement is impossible, and changes how early conciliation certificates are addressed and sent.

It extends to England and Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own separate tribunal and conciliation regime and is untouched by this instrument.

Verified on 10 November 2026 against the text of SI 2026/1144 as made, the Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemptions and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2014 as currently in force, and the explanatory memorandum, all on legislation.gov.uk.

Status: MADE and LAID, but NOT YET IN FORCE. SI 2026/1144 comes into force on 26 November 2026. As of 10 November 2026, the 2014 Regulations still apply unamended: the early conciliation form is required to contain only the names and addresses of the prospective claimant and the prospective respondent. Anyone notifying ACAS today is working under the current rules, not the ones described below.

The title says "Exemptions", but the exemptions do not change

This is the detail most likely to be reported wrongly, so it is worth being precise about it.

The word "Exemptions" in the title is inherited from the name of the parent instrument being amended, the Employment Tribunals (Early Conciliation: Exemptions and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2014. An amending instrument is conventionally named after the instrument it amends, so the title tells you what is being amended, not which parts of it.

The exemptions themselves sit in regulation 3 of the 2014 Regulations, headed "Exemptions from early conciliation". It covers a claimant who wants to join a claim form on which another person has already complied with the requirement for the same dispute, claims brought on the same form as proceedings that are not relevant proceedings, cases where the respondent has already contacted ACAS, interim relief cases, and proceedings against the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service or GCHQ.

No regulation in SI 2026/1144 touches regulation 3. The instrument does not even reach for the power to do so: it is made under section 18A(1), (4), (11) and (12)(b) of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996, not section 18A(7), which is the exemptions power the 2014 Regulations relied on for regulation 3. Regulation 3 of the new instrument amends regulation 2 of the 2014 Regulations, the interpretation provision, inserting two definitions and removing one "and". Regulations 4 to 10 then amend rules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9 of the Schedule, which contains the Early Conciliation Rules of Procedure.

The official record agrees. The "changes yet to be applied" list on the 2014 Regulations attributes effects of SI 2026/1144 to regulation 2 and to Schedule rules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9 only. The explanatory memorandum describes the changes as additions to the prescribed information, the rule 5 contact change, and clarifications, and records that the early conciliation requirement remains "subject to limited exceptions" without proposing any change to them. Anyone who needs to know whether their claim is exempt should read regulation 3 of the 2014 Regulations, which this instrument leaves alone.

What the early conciliation form will have to contain

Early conciliation is the mandatory pre-claim step. Section 18A(1) of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996 requires a prospective claimant to provide prescribed information to ACAS about the matter before presenting an application to institute relevant proceedings, and section 18A(8) provides that a person subject to that requirement "may not present an application to institute relevant proceedings without a certificate under subsection (4)". The 2014 Regulations are where "prescribed" is filled in, which is why an amendment to a form specification is an amendment to a precondition of bringing an employment tribunal claim.

The baseline every form must meet

Regulation 5(2) substitutes a new rule 2(2). From 26 November 2026 an early conciliation form must contain the prospective claimant's name; an address, a telephone number if any, and an email address if any, at which the prospective claimant can be contacted; the prospective respondent's name; an address at which the prospective respondent can be contacted; and confirmation of whether or not the prospective claimant wishes to reach a settlement.

Compare the current rule 2(2), which requires only "the prospective claimant's name and address" and "the prospective respondent's name and address". The explanatory memorandum is candid that the information beyond names and addresses is currently optional on the ACAS form, and that this instrument "makes the related fields in the early conciliation form mandatory rather than optional".

Regulation 3(c) also inserts a definition of "settlement" into the 2014 Regulations, taking the meaning from section 18A(6) of the Employment Tribunals Act 1996: a settlement that avoids proceedings being instituted. That is narrower than the settlement agreements that resolve a claim after it has been presented, and it is the sense in which the new rule 2(2)(e) question is asked.

One clarification in the new wording is worth flagging because it helps represented claimants. The memorandum says the amendments make clear that the parties' "actual addresses do not need to be included on the early conciliation form and certificate and an address at which they can be contacted at, for example, that of a representative, can be included instead".

The extra questions apply only if you want to settle

From 26 November 2026, regulation 5(3) inserts a new rule 2(2A), and its opening words do a lot of work: it applies only "[w]here the prospective claimant wishes to reach a settlement". A claimant who confirms under rule 2(2)(e) that they do not wish to settle does not have to answer the longer list.

Where the claimant does wish to settle, the form must also contain, "where known to the prospective claimant", a telephone number and email address at which the prospective respondent can be contacted. The remaining items are confirmation of whether the claimant consents to ACAS contacting the respondent about the matter; an indication of what the matter is; confirmation of whether the matter is, or is alleged to be, ongoing, or if not, an indication of how long ago it occurred or finished occurring; confirmation of whether the claimant raised the matter with the respondent; and confirmation of whether the claimant is or was employed, or alleges that they are or were employed, by the respondent.

Two points of substance follow. First, "where known to the prospective claimant" is a real qualification: a worker who does not have the right contact details for a large employer is not blocked by that gap. Second, "employed" is defined by regulation 3(a) of the new instrument by reference to section 230(5) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which defines "employment" for an employee as employment under a contract of employment and for a worker as employment under his contract, and provides that "employed" is construed accordingly. The question therefore reaches workers and not only employees.

The question about whether the claimant raised the matter with the respondent lines up with long-standing practice on grievances and the ACAS Code, although the new rule asks only for a yes or a no and attaches no consequence to the answer.

Multiple matters and multiple employers on one form

Regulation 4 turns the existing text of rule 1 into rule 1(1) and inserts a new rule 1(2): where there is more than one matter, a prospective claimant may complete a single early conciliation form covering those matters together under rule 2, or telephone ACAS about them together under rule 3.

Regulation 7 omits rule 4, which currently allows more than one prospective respondent to be named. That function moves into new rule 2(2B): where there is more than one prospective respondent, the reference to the respondent in rule 2(2A)(e), the "did you raise it" question, is read as a reference to at least one prospective respondent, and otherwise references to the respondent in rule 2 are read as references to each prospective respondent. New rule 2(2C) applies the same pattern to multiple matters.

In plain terms, contact details and the other particulars are needed for each respondent and each matter, but the "did you raise it" answer only has to be true of at least one. The explanatory memorandum describes the position in the same way.

Regulation 5(4) makes the consequential fix to rule 2(3), the paragraph that lets ACAS reject an incomplete form or contact the claimant to correct errors, so that it now refers to "paragraph (2) or, where applicable, (2A)". Regulation 6 does the equivalent for the telephone route: a caller must tell ACAS "the information specified in rule 2(2) and, where applicable, (2A)". The two routes carry the same information burden.

From 26 November, ACAS can decline to contact an employer

Rule 5(2) of the 2014 Regulations currently requires ACAS, where the claimant consents to it contacting the prospective respondent, to make reasonable attempts to do so. Regulation 8 adds eight words at the end: ", unless it concludes that settlement is not possible."

That is a narrow but real change. Rule 5(3) already provides that where ACAS cannot make contact with either party it must conclude that settlement is not possible, and rule 7(1) requires a certificate once a conciliation officer concludes settlement is not possible. The amendment lets ACAS reach that conclusion before approaching the employer at all. The explanatory memorandum presents this as covering "the rare cases when this is clear to them before they have spoken to the prospective respondent", and gives cases with multiple respondents as an example.

For a claimant, the practical consequence is that a certificate can issue without the employer ever having been approached. That was already possible where consent was withheld or contact failed; from 26 November 2026 it will also be possible on an ACAS judgement call.

Certificates, email, and why delivery affects deadlines

Regulation 9 substitutes rule 8(a) and (b) so that a certificate contains "the name of the prospective claimant and an address at which they can be contacted" and the same for the respondent, replacing the current "name and address" formulation.

Regulation 10 replaces rule 9(2). The current rule is drafted globally: if either party has provided an email address, ACAS must send the certificate by email. The new rule is person-specific: where an email address at which the claimant or the respondent can be contacted has been provided, ACAS must send the certificate to that person by email, and in any other case must send it by post. One party can be emailed while the other is posted.

This is not merely administrative, because receipt of the certificate is a date that moves legal deadlines. Section 207B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 defines Day A as the day the claimant complies with section 18A(1) and Day B as the day the claimant receives, or is treated as receiving, the certificate. The period beginning with the day after Day A and ending with Day B is not counted when working out when a time limit expires, and if a time limit would otherwise expire between Day A and one month after Day B, it expires at the end of that period instead. Rule 9(3), which deems a certificate received on the day it is sent by email or on the day it would arrive in the ordinary course of post, is not amended, so the method of delivery still decides Day B.

Where this sits against the current tribunal time limits

Early conciliation interacts with tribunal time limits, and the time limits themselves moved recently, so the position needs stating precisely.

Section 152 of and Schedule 12 to the Employment Rights Act 2025 increase time limits for making claims in employment tribunals in Great Britain, and in certain cases industrial tribunals in Northern Ireland, from three months to six months. Those provisions came into force on 1 October 2026 under regulation 3 of the Employment Rights Act 2025 (Commencement No. 5 and Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Regulations 2026, SI 2026/954, subject to regulation 4 of that instrument: the Schedule 12 amendments "do not apply in any case where the relevant date occurs before 1st October 2026". The relevant date is generally the date of the act, conduct or failure complained of, or the last in a series, with specified dates for particular complaints.

So six months applies to matters whose relevant date falls on or after 1 October 2026, and the old three-month period still governs earlier ones. Separately, for contract claims in Scottish employment tribunals, the Employment Tribunals Extension of Jurisdiction (Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2026, SSI 2026/327, substituted "six" for "three" in article 7(a) and (b) of the 1994 Scotland Order with effect from 9 November 2026, applying where the effective date of termination occurs on or after that date.

The conciliation window also lengthened before any of this. Rule 6(1) now allows up to 12 weeks for a conciliation officer to endeavour to promote a settlement, the figure having been raised from six weeks by SI 2025/1153 with effect from 1 December 2025 for notifications made on or after that date. None of these time-limit changes is made by SI 2026/1144, which alters no time limit; they are simply the backdrop a claimant is operating in. Only the Great Britain change is part of the staged commencement of the Employment Rights Act 2025; the 12-week window and the Scottish contract-claim change were made under the Employment Tribunals Act 1996.

The changes regulation by regulation

Context and scale

Early conciliation is high volume. ACAS reported 39,822 worker-led individual early conciliation cases for January to March 2026 in its quarterly statistics, alongside 480 worker-led group cases covering 13,708 claimants. Every one of those notifications passes through the form this instrument rewrites.

The stated rationale is triage. The explanatory memorandum says the extra information "would allow Acas to triage cases to conciliators more quickly and begin conciliation sooner as less time will be spent obtaining further information from prospective claimants". It records targeted engagement with members of the Dispute Resolution System Taskforce, "broad support from all groups", user testing that found no issues with the questions being made mandatory, and consultation of the Information Commissioner under article 36(4) of the UK GDPR because more information is being collected.

No full impact assessment was produced. The memorandum puts the expected impact on business below the £10 million threshold, records that a de minimis assessment was completed and published alongside the instrument and "shows that there will be no expected cost to business of familiarising themselves with the regulatory change", and notes that the instrument is subject to the negative procedure and contains no statutory review clause.

What Happens Next

26 November 2026 is the operative date. From that day the amended rules 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9 apply and rule 4 is gone. Until then the 2014 Regulations stand as they are.

The instrument contains no transitional or saving provision. Regulations 1 to 10 cover citation, commencement, extent and eight amending regulations, and nothing addresses conciliation already under way on 26 November 2026. That is a departure from the two adjacent instruments in this area, both of which did say: SI 2025/1153 included a transitional provision tying the 12-week period to notifications made on or after 1 December 2025, and SSI 2026/327 tied its longer contract time limit to terminations on or after 9 November 2026. What that silence means for a claimant who notified ACAS in mid-November 2026 and is still in conciliation on 26 November is not addressed on the face of the instrument, and we have not found published ACAS guidance on the point.

ACAS guidance had not been updated as at 10 November 2026. The ACAS pages "What early conciliation is" and "How the process works" both show a last-updated date of 1 October 2026, neither mentions the 26 November 2026 changes or new mandatory questions, and the process page still states that a claimant "might only have 3 months minus 1 day" to make a claim, without mentioning the six-month limit now applicable to matters with a relevant date on or after 1 October 2026. That statement is not wrong for older matters, but it is incomplete for newer ones. The explanatory memorandum says existing guidance prompts "will continue to be available on the notification form", and that ACAS will monitor the notification process and review the form and prompts where issues are identified. ACAS guidance is useful for understanding how the service operates in practice, but the instrument is the law.

The online form is the practical test. The form is where the prescribed information is actually collected, so whether it and its guidance prompts carry the new mandatory fields on 26 November 2026 is what claimants will encounter.

Analysis: Why This Matters

The following is analysis from the Recording Law Editorial Team.

The interesting thing about SI 2026/1144 is where it puts the extra burden. The longer list of questions is conditional twice over: it applies only where a claimant says they want to settle, and the respondent's phone and email are needed only "where known". A claimant who wants nothing but a certificate still faces only names, contact details and the single question about whether they wish to settle. That drafting keeps the section 18A gateway narrow, which matters because section 18A(8) makes the certificate a precondition of presenting a claim, and a precondition that is easy to fail is a precondition that can cost someone a claim.

The reframing from "name and address" to "an address at which they can be contacted" is the kind of small change that practitioners notice first. Read with the memorandum's statement that a representative's address will do, it recognises a reality the 2014 drafting did not: that parties to a dispute may have good reasons not to exchange home addresses, and that early conciliation is often conducted through representatives.

The rule 5(2) amendment is the one that shifts a judgement from the claimant to ACAS. Before this instrument, an employer went uncontacted because the claimant withheld consent or because contact failed. After it, ACAS may also conclude at the outset that settlement is not possible and move straight to a certificate, so a claimant may hold a certificate recording that conciliation did not succeed with an employer who was never approached. The memorandum frames that as resource allocation in rare cases, and the monitoring it describes, user testing and operational feedback, is what would show whether the category stays rare.

Finally, there is the gap between the instrument and the guidance. Tens of thousands of claimants a quarter will meet this change not as a statutory instrument but as a web form, and as at 10 November 2026 the public ACAS pages describing the process carry a last-updated date of 1 October 2026 and say nothing about 26 November. Sixteen days remain for that to change, and the memorandum does say the guidance prompts on the form will remain. The durable point is the one the status note makes: the law on the page and the form on the screen are not always the same age, and where they differ, the instrument governs.

This article is not legal advice. It summarises a statutory instrument and the provisions it amends as at 10 November 2026. Early conciliation requirements and tribunal time limits turn on dates and on the particular claim, and getting a date wrong can end a claim. If you are considering an employment tribunal claim, take advice from a qualified employment solicitor, adviser or your trade union about your own circumstances.

Related articles

• Employment tribunal claims: how the process works, from notification to hearing
• Tribunal deadlines after the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes
• When a settlement agreement is binding, and what it costs you to sign

Frequently Asked Questions

Do the new early conciliation questions apply now?

No. SI 2026/1144 was made on 27 October 2026 and laid before Parliament on 4 November 2026, but regulation 1(2) brings it into force on 26 November 2026. Until then the 2014 Regulations apply unamended, so the form is required to contain only the names and addresses of the prospective claimant and the prospective respondent.

What extra information will the ACAS early conciliation form require?

From 26 November 2026 the new rule 2(2) requires the claimant's name, an address plus any telephone number and email address for contacting them, the respondent's name, an address for contacting the respondent, and confirmation of whether the claimant wishes to reach a settlement. Where the claimant does wish to settle, new rule 2(2A) adds the respondent's telephone number and email 'where known', consent to ACAS contacting the respondent, an indication of the matter, whether it is ongoing or when it occurred, whether the claimant raised it with the respondent, and whether the claimant is or was employed by the respondent.

Do I have to answer all the new questions if I only want a certificate?

New rule 2(2A) applies only 'where the prospective claimant wishes to reach a settlement'. A claimant who confirms under rule 2(2)(e) that they do not wish to reach a settlement is not required by rule 2(2A) to provide the additional information, though the rule 2(2) baseline still applies.

Can one early conciliation form cover several problems or several employers?

Yes, from 26 November 2026. New rule 1(2) lets a claimant with more than one matter use one form or one telephone call for them together, and new rule 2(2B) handles multiple prospective respondents after regulation 7 omits rule 4. Details are generally needed for each respondent and each matter, but the question about whether the claimant raised the matter is read as applying to at least one.

Can ACAS decide not to contact my employer?

From 26 November 2026, yes in one specific situation. Regulation 8 adds the words ', unless it concludes that settlement is not possible' to rule 5(2), so ACAS need not make reasonable attempts to contact a prospective respondent where it has reached that conclusion. The explanatory memorandum describes this as covering rare cases where the position is clear before the employer has been spoken to.

How will my early conciliation certificate be sent?

New rule 9(2), substituted by regulation 10, requires ACAS to email the certificate to the claimant or the respondent where an email address at which that person can be contacted has been provided, and to post it in any other case. The decision is made separately for each person, so one party may be emailed and the other posted.

Does this instrument change the employment tribunal time limit?

No. SI 2026/1144 amends no time limit. The increase from three months to six months comes from section 152 of and Schedule 12 to the Employment Rights Act 2025, in force from 1 October 2026 under SI 2026/954, which does not apply where the relevant date occurs before 1 October 2026. Certificate delivery still matters indirectly, because section 207B of the Employment Rights Act 1996 ties the stop-the-clock calculation to the day the certificate is received or treated as received.

Does SI 2026/1144 apply in Northern Ireland?

No. Regulation 1(3) provides that the Regulations extend to England and Wales and Scotland, and the explanatory memorandum gives the extent and territorial application as Great Britain. Northern Ireland operates its own separate tribunal and conciliation regime.

Does the instrument change who is exempt from early conciliation?

No. The exemptions are in regulation 3 of the 2014 Regulations, and no regulation in SI 2026/1144 amends it. The official list of effects attributes changes only to regulation 2 of the 2014 Regulations and to Schedule rules 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9. The word 'Exemptions' in the title comes from the name of the 2014 Regulations being amended.