Employment Tribunals

Simon Robinson, employment law partner at Gordons, Leeds, is interviewed in the Yorkshire Post. When asked: What law would you like to see changed? Mr Robinson responds: “Costs should be awarded automatically against claimants who bring unsuccessful claims. Even though I’ve secured costs awards for clients on numerous occasions, I’ve been frustrated in other hearings I’ve won where the claimant didn’t have to pay my client’s costs.”

Yorkshire Post, Page: 7

The number of employment tribunal claims has plummeted by around 80% for the second consecutive quarter, following the introduction of fees, official figures revealed today.

Claims dropped 81% between January to March 2014 to 6,019, compared with the same quarter in 2012/13, according to government statistics. In the last quarter of 2013 claims fell by 79%, compared with the last quarter of 2012.

Trade union Unison said today’s statistics ‘add significant weight to the union’s arguments that workers are being priced out of justice’.

Unison has been granted permission to appeal the High Court’s rejection of its judicial review challenging the introduction of tribunal fees.

The JR was dismissed in February on the basis that there was no quantifiable evidence at that point to assess the impact of the fees.

Dave Prentis (pictured), general secretary of Unison, said: ‘This downward spiral in the number of employment tribunal cases shows only too clearly that workers are being priced out of a fair hearing.

He said: ‘Today’s figures make shocking reading because individual claims are now at a perilously low level.’

Tribunal fees were introduced on 29 July 2013 and start at around £160 to issue a claim, rising to £250 a claim, depending on the type, and a further hearing fee ranging from £230 to £950.

Richard Fox, head of employment law at London firm Kingsley Napley, described the fall in claims as ‘drastic’ and ‘way outside government expectations when the fees regime was first introduced last July’. He said that Unison may be able to use the statistics in its judicial review challenge.

It is unclear what the overall fall in employment disputes is, as some claimants in employment cases are turning to county courts instead. Former tribunals president David Latham told the Gazette last week: ‘A lot of cases are going through the county courts as the fees are much cheaper, so we don’t know what the figure is.’

A Freedom of Information request brought by Thompsons Solicitors reveals that employment tribunal fees were waived in only 4.5% of 14,000 claims in the six months to December, despite government claims that one in three would not have to pay when it brought in means-tested charges. The number of employment tribunal cases has fallen from 50,000 a quarter to 10,000 since fees were introduced in July 2013. Labour’s Ian Murray said: “These new fees are placing a hurdle in front of our poorest workers who have been wronged at work.”

The facts speak for themselves. Since the Government introduced Tribunal Fees of on average £1250 per claim since July 2013, it has been reported that Tribunal claims are down by a massive 79%. There is no other explanation for this fall other than the introduction of fees alone. In essence, this means that 79% more employers are now at liberty to behave unscrupulously and fear no reprisals. The signal this sends to employers is worrying.

The fear alone of these large fees puts off the majority of Claimants from taking legal advice, who at that time are without work, without income and at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives.

The remission scheme designed to meet the fees for people who cannot afford them is intentionally burdensome, onerous and simply not fit for purpose. Almost all remission claims made are rejected in the first instance. The fact that the standard rejection form used has 28 boxes for various reasons for rejection speaks for itself. Claimants are asked to provide bank statements that are forensically examined. If you have more than £3000 in life savings you don’t qualify for remission at all. If claimants legitimately receive state benefits, but of the wrong type, they don’t get automatic remission. In short, Claimants simply get fed up, give up, forget it and become one of the 79%.

As for the economic argument, I doubt the fees have actually made any net income given the massive fall-off in anticipated revenue coupled with the huge costs of setting up the administration of the fee and remission system.

At the same time as these fees came into force, somewhat less well publicised, the Government also served employers another huge banquet by introducing a cap on unfair dismissal damages from over £74K, to a year pay, whichever is less. This has had a huge impact on those Claimants with claims valued at in excess of a year’s pay – such as those with large pension losses or those older workers with poor re-employment prospects and large future losses. In either case, their claims are dramatically reduced saving unscrupulous employers thousands.

In essence, the new employment law landscape gives employers the green light to behave however they want in the knowledge that there is only a 21% chance they will ever be challenged and even if they are, the financial penalty has been softened for them.

The Government must re-think this bad law quickly. Every month that passes, thousands more people are being denied access to justice in the most shocking way.

Dean Morris, Solicitor