The number of claims submitted to Employment Tribunals across England, Scotland and Wales has dramatically dropped by a whopping 79% a year after the Government introduced the controversial fee regime. The Ministry of Justice has published the quarterly Employment Tribunal statistics for October to December 2013. The statistics show that there has been a 79% drop (compared with the same period in 2012) in the number of applications lodged. The data comes after the Government introduced fees for employees to bring a claim in the Employment Tribunal in July 2013. This means that disgruntled employees now have to pay fees totalling £1100.00 when making claims for matters such as unfair dismissal and discrimination. Although there was a large influx of claims lodged in late June and July last year prior to the introduction of fees, since then there has been a large decrease in the number of claims being lodged. However, the cases which are now being pursued in the Employment Tribunal are increasingly complex. There are other factors which could have influenced the latest figures:
- The increase to two years of the qualifying period for unfair dismissal
- A reduction in the number of multiple equal pay claims, particularly in the public sector
- The decrease in the compensation cap for unfair dismissal
- The ability for employers now to have protected conversations
These reforms have been a part of the Government's plan to try and decrease the burden of employment law for businesses. Shailesh Vara, the Justice Minister, has argued that it is 'not fair for the tax-payer to foot the entire £74m bill for people to escalate workplace disputes to a Tribunal'. She said 'it is in everyone's interest to avoid drawn-out disputes which emotionally damage workers and financially damage businesses'. As part of the Government's reforms, to try and reduce the number of Employment Tribunal claims further, the ACAS early conciliation scheme will start on 6 April 2014. This will become mandatory on 6 May 2014. There will be a new duty on the employee and employer and ACAS to attempt conciliation before claims are submitted to the Employment Tribunal. This will mean that employees will be unable to bring a claim to the Tribunal until an attempt has been made at early conciliation. This is also likely to have an impact upon the number of Employment Tribunal claims which are likely to decrease further as a result of these reforms. Feel free to contact Glenn Jaques at Wake Smith LLP at [email protected] or on 0114 224 2043.
