26th September 2013
Quarterly Employment Tribunal Statistics Published
The Ministry of Justice has recently published its Quarterly Tribunal Statistics and Tables for April to June 2013. The report also includes the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal information which relates to the financial year 1 April 2012 to 31 March 2013.
The information provided by the Ministry of Justice shows that the number of new Employment Tribunal claims has remained constant following a slight reduction in the previous year. It is anticipated that the new fee structure (whereby most claimants must pay a fee to issue a claim in the Employment Tribunal) will reduce the overall number of claims made, however the impact of the new structure will not fully be known for some time.
The statistics show the following:
• 15% of claims lodged were for unfair dismissal, 16% were for unauthorised deduction from wages, 9% were for breach of contract, 11% related to unlawful discrimination, 7% were for equal pay, 30% related to the Working Time Regulations and the remainder related to other matters.
• 61% of all cases were withdrawn or settled before a tribunal hearing, 12% were struck out without a hearing, 11% were successful at tribunal hearing, 10% were dismissed at a preliminary hearing or were unsuccessful at tribunal hearing and 6% were disposed of via a default judgment.
• 1,295 claims were initially rejected by the tribunal. Of these, only 228 were subsequently re-submitted and accepted. The remainder were either never re-submitted or were re-submitted but still not accepted.
• 73% of claimants were represented by lawyers and 3% were represented by a Trade Union.
• The maximum unfair dismissal award was £236,147 and the average award was £10,127.
• The maximum sex discrimination award was £318,630 and the average award was £10,552.
• The maximum disability discrimination award was £387,472 and the average award was £16,320.
