Acas reports record demand as tribunal system adapts to rising caseload

Background

The employment tribunal system continues to experience rising demand, with increasing numbers of tribunal claims and early conciliation notifications placing pressure on both Acas and the tribunals. As the Employment Rights Act 2025 reforms are implemented over the coming months, further increases in workplace disputes and tribunal claims are anticipated.

Against that backdrop, Acas has published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2025/26, while the Senior President of Tribunals has issued a new Practice Statement expanding the judicial functions that legal officers may carry out within the employment tribunals.

Update

Acas reported receiving more than 150,000 early conciliation notifications during 2025/26, a 27% increase on the previous year. Despite this, it achieved record settlement rates, with 80% of individual conciliation cases and 93% of collective conciliation cases resolving successfully. Acas has responded by recruiting additional conciliators, introducing an Early Contact Team to triage cases and continuing work on AI-assisted dispute resolution. It expects demand to increase further as employment law reforms take effect.

Separately, the new Practice Statement authorises legal officers, under the supervision of an employment judge, to carry out a wider range of procedural functions. These include rejecting certain defective claims, requiring further information, making specified case management orders, striking out claims that have not been actively pursued and listing preliminary hearings. Parties retain the right to ask for decisions made by a legal officer to be reconsidered by an employment judge.

Learning points

Neither development changes employers' substantive legal obligations. However, together they demonstrate the steps being taken to improve the efficiency of the employment dispute resolution system as workloads continue to increase.

For employers, the message is clear. Early resolution of workplace disputes is likely to become increasingly important as tribunal demand grows. At the same time, parties can expect more routine procedural decisions to be made by legal officers rather than employment judges, with judges able to focus their time on more complex and contested issues.

For more information or advice, please get in touch with Sofia Efstathiou in our Employment team.