Making a Claim to an Employment Tribunal

Before starting the legal process, try to solve the problem another way — raise it informally, use your employer's grievance procedure, or appeal a disciplinary outcome. At a tribunal, the judge will usually expect you to show you tried to resolve the dispute yourself, and not doing so can affect how much compensation you get if you win. Raising it internally does not change your tribunal time limit.

You usually have to make a claim within 3 months of your employment ending or the problem happening — in most cases this is 3 months minus 1 day. For unfair dismissal the period runs from the date your employment ended; for discrimination or a pay dispute it runs from when the incident or dispute happened. If you were dismissed for trade union activities, acting as a workers' representative or whistleblowing, you can apply for interim relief — but that claim must be made within 7 days of dismissal.

Before you make a claim you must tell Acas (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service). You will be offered Acas's free early conciliation service, where a conciliator talks to both sides to try to reach a settlement without a tribunal. By law, early conciliation can last up to 12 weeks. The tribunal time limit is put on hold while Acas helps you resolve the dispute. If conciliation does not work (or either side declines), Acas sends you an early conciliation certificate — you need its number for your claim form, and once you receive it you have at least one month left to claim.

Make your claim online through the employment tribunal service, or by post using the claim form sent to the Employment Tribunal central office for England and Wales (PO Box 11225, Loughborough LE11 9PX) or Scotland (PO Box 27105, Glasgow G2 9JR). You will need the names and addresses of all claimants and respondents plus your Acas early conciliation certificate numbers. There is no fee to make a claim. Tell the tribunal when you claim if you need reasonable adjustments for a disability or health condition.

The respondent usually has to reply to your claim in writing within 28 days of getting your claim form, giving their side of the case. Once they have replied, the tribunal decides whether there will be a full hearing. If they do not reply, the tribunal may decide the case without a hearing.

You may be asked to attend an initial (preliminary) hearing in person, by phone or by video. After hearing both sides, the judge decides things like whether part or all of your claim can go ahead, the date and length of the full hearing, and how both sides must prepare.

You must share all relevant documents with the respondent and the tribunal — even if they do not help your case — and the respondent must do the same. Examples include your employment contract, payslips, pension details and notes of relevant meetings. The tribunal will usually issue an order with a timetable for sharing documents. You can bring witnesses whose evidence is directly relevant, and if a witness refuses to attend you can ask the tribunal to order them to come.

You normally get at least 14 days' notice of the date and time of your hearing, which may be in person, by phone or by video. You present your case (or a lawyer, friend or family member can do it for you), the respondent presents theirs, and both sides can call witnesses. You are usually sent the decision a few days or weeks after the hearing, and it will be published on GOV.UK.

If you win, the tribunal can order compensation, witness expenses, steps to reduce discrimination, or your job back. If the respondent does not pay, you can use the penalty enforcement scheme (they can be fined and named online), the Fast Track scheme (£71, added to the debt) to send a high court enforcement officer, or the County Court (a warrant costs £83, added to the debt). If you lose, you can ask the tribunal to reconsider within 14 days of the written decision, or appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal within 42 days if you think a legal mistake was made.