The Employment Tribunal Process for Employers, Stage by Stage

This is a walkthrough of what actually happens after an employee starts a claim against you, in order, with the deadlines that bind you at each stage. It is written for the employer side. If what you need is a shortlist of firms that will handle it, that sits on the employment law support page and in the city shortlists across the directory.

Stage 1: ACAS early conciliation

Before an employee can issue a tribunal claim in Great Britain they must notify ACAS. You will normally hear from a conciliator by phone.

• Conciliation is voluntary for both sides, and you can decline to engage without prejudicing your defence.
• The clock stops while conciliation runs, which extends the claimant's time limit.
• Anything said in conciliation is confidential and cannot be put before the tribunal.
• If it settles here it is usually recorded on a COT3, which is binding and does not need a solicitor to be valid.

Practical point: this is the cheapest exit that exists. Decide the commercial number you would pay to end it before you take the call, and separate that number from how strongly you feel about the merits.

Stage 2: The claim form (ET1) arrives

If conciliation fails, ACAS issues a certificate and the claimant files an ET1. The tribunal sends it to you with a response deadline.

• You have 28 days from the date the tribunal sends the claim to file your response on form ET3.
• Miss it and a judgment can be entered against you without a hearing. Extensions are possible but must be applied for with reasons.
• Time limits for the claimant are generally three months less one day from the act complained of, extended by the conciliation period. Whether a claim is in time is often the first thing worth checking.

Stage 3: Preparing the ET3 response

The response is not a place for a narrative about how difficult the employee was. It is a paragraph-by-paragraph answer to the claim, and it frames your entire case.

What is normally assembled at this point:

• The contract, handbook and any policy the process relied on.
• Every letter, invitation, minute and outcome from the disciplinary or grievance process.
• Notes and correspondence, including informal messages. Assume everything is disclosable.
• The decision-maker's own account, while they still remember it.

Where employers lose winnable cases is procedure rather than substance: no written invitation, no right to be accompanied, no appeal offered, or an investigation and decision made by the same person.

Stage 4: Case management and preliminary hearings

The tribunal will usually set directions, either on paper or at a short preliminary hearing by video. Typical outputs are a list of issues, a disclosure date, a schedule for witness statements, an agreed bundle, and a hearing window. In discrimination cases there may be a preliminary hearing on jurisdiction or time limits.

Stage 5: Disclosure, bundle and witness statements

Both sides disclose relevant documents, including those that harm their own case. You then agree a paginated bundle and exchange witness statements simultaneously. Statements are read by the judge in advance, so the hearing itself is mostly cross-examination.

Stage 6: The hearing

Unfair dismissal cases are typically heard by a judge sitting alone; discrimination cases usually sit with a full panel. Length varies from a day for a simple wages claim to several days or more for discrimination. Your witnesses attend in person or by video depending on the venue's directions. Judgment may be given orally on the day or reserved and sent in writing.

Stage 7: Remedy

If the claim succeeds, remedy is decided at the same hearing or at a separate one. Broad shape:

• Unfair dismissal: a basic award calculated like statutory redundancy pay, plus a compensatory award for lost earnings, subject to the statutory cap. Awards can be reduced for contributory fault or failure to mitigate, and adjusted where the ACAS Code was unreasonably not followed.
• Discrimination: no statutory cap, and injury to feelings is awarded on top of financial loss using the Vento bands.
• Wages and holiday claims: the unpaid sum, and these are frequently added to a larger claim rather than brought alone.

What it costs to defend, and how cover works

There are no tribunal issue fees in Great Britain. Your cost is representation and management time, and defending a claim to a full hearing routinely runs into thousands of pounds even where you win, because costs awards are rare.

Three ways employers cover it:

• Solicitor, billed hourly or as a fixed fee per matter, instructed when the claim lands.
• HR retainer with tribunal representation included, either in the fee or through an attached insurance product.
• Standalone employment practices insurance, usually with an excess and a condition that you followed the insurer's advice.

The condition attached to insured cover is the part employers miss. If you dismissed against the adviser's recommendation, cover can be refused. Ask, before you act on anything, whether the advice you are following is the advice your policy requires.

Questions to ask before you instruct anyone

• Who will conduct the hearing, and how many employer-side cases have they run?
• Is representation included in my fee, insured with an excess, or billed separately?
• Is preparation time capped, and what happens if the hearing is relisted?
• Who attends at the tribunal venue that hears our local claims, and is travel included?
• At what point will you tell me plainly that settling is the better commercial decision?

Sources

• ACAS guidance on early conciliation and the Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures.
• Gov.uk guidance on employment tribunal claims, response deadlines and the ET3 form.
• Presidential guidance on Vento bands for injury to feelings awards.