Question 1

How does an employment tribunal claim work?

Accepted Answer

A specialist tribunal hearing claims about employment rights — less formal than a court, with its own procedure, and governed by **very short time limits** that end more claims than any argument about merits.

**The time limit.** Generally **three months less one day** from the act complained of — the dismissal date, the discriminatory act, or the underpayment. This is strict, and extensions are granted only in limited circumstances, on different tests for different claim types.

**ACAS early conciliation is a mandatory first step.** You must notify ACAS before issuing a claim. ACAS offers to conciliate; if it does not resolve, a **certificate** is issued and the clock, which was paused during conciliation, resumes. Skipping this step means the claim is rejected.

**The stages:**

**ET1 claim form**, setting out the claim.

**ET3 response** from the employer.

**Case management**, including a preliminary hearing where needed to clarify issues, decide preliminary points or set directions.

**Disclosure** of relevant documents by both sides — **including documents that harm your own case**, which surprises people.

**Witness statements**, exchanged before the hearing and generally taken as the evidence in chief.

**The hearing**, before a judge alone or a judge with two lay members, one from an employer background and one from an employee background — panels being usual for discrimination claims.

**Judgment**, with remedy decided at the same hearing or separately.

**What is distinctive:**

**No fees**, following the Supreme Court's decision that the fee regime introduced in 2013 was unlawful.

**Costs are not usually awarded** — unlike ordinary civil litigation, each side generally bears its own costs, with exceptions for unreasonable conduct. This matters enormously, since it means losing does not normally mean paying the employer's legal bill.

**Settlement is very common**, and can occur at any stage, frequently through ACAS or a **settlement agreement**.

**Compensation** varies by claim type: unfair dismissal has a basic and compensatory award with statutory caps, while discrimination compensation is uncapped and can include injury to feelings.

**Delays are substantial**, with waits of many months to a hearing.

General information, not legal advice.

Question 2

How does a grievance procedure work?

Accepted Answer

The formal route for raising a concern about your employment with your employer — and although the procedure itself is not directly enforceable, following it matters because failing to can reduce

Question 3

What is a settlement agreement and when is one offered?

Accepted Answer

A settlement agreement is a legally binding contract in which an employee agrees to waive their right to bring claims against the employer, usually in exchange for a payment. It was formerly called a

Question 4

What happens at a redundancy consultation?

Accepted Answer

A process an employer must follow before dismissing for redundancy — and consultation must be genuine and happen while proposals are still capable of being influenced, which is the requirement most

Question 5

How does a disciplinary procedure actually work?

Accepted Answer

Through a defined process that an employer must follow to act fairly — and the process matters as much as the substance, because a dismissal for a genuinely good reason can still be unfair if the

Question 6

How does a flexible working request work?

Accepted Answer

In the UK, flexible working is a statutory request process with defined steps and a limited set of grounds for refusal — not simply asking a manager nicely, though it frequently starts that way. What

Question 7

What happens if your employer goes insolvent and you are owed money?

Accepted Answer

You become a creditor — and the practical answer is that some of what you are owed is payable by a government scheme rather than depending on whether there is money left in the business, which is the

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