The Ministry of Justice has published the Employment Tribunal annual statistics for the year ending 21 March 2012 revealing some interesting trends. Most notably the number of claims making their way to employment tribunals has fallen by 15 per cent this year to 186,300.
Although the long term (10 year) trend has seen overall tribunal cases generally increasing, 2011/12 marks the second year in a row that the number of claims has fallen year on year since their peak in 2009/10.
Key Points
While the number of claims accepted by employment tribunals fell this year, the number that actually proceeded to tribunal and were disposed of (cases closed) also fell by 10 per cent to 110,800. Although there was a year on year fall the figures were similar to the 2009/10 year.
Claims are split into single which are brought by a single employee against an employer and multiple which are brought by two or more people against the same employer. The number of single claims fell by 2 per cent while the number of multiple claims fell by a much larger 19 per cent. The importance of this statistic should not be overlooked as there is some concern that the changing number of class actions brought against employers may have skewed other important statistics.
Each claim made to the employment tribunal may feature a single complaint such as unfair dismissal or redundancy; or several complaints simultaneously. On average there were 1.73 complaints per claim, 321,800 in total. The overall number of complaints brought to the employment tribunal fell by 16 per cent during the period.
Unfair dismissal, breach of contract and redundancy made up the bulk of the complaints at 31%, Working Time Regulations made up 29% and 16% were related to unauthorised deductions under the Wages Act.
Although overall complaints fell overall year on year, there were numerous exceptions. Disability discrimination complaints rose 6.9 per cent, redundancy (failure to inform and consult) rose 8.1%, written statement of reasons for dismissal rose 3.2 per cent, transfer of an undertaking (failure to inform and consult) rose 36.8 per cent and discrimination on grounds of religion or belief rose 6.8 per cent.
Employment tribunals disposed of 230,000 complaints in total which represented a fall of 6 per cent.
The employment appeals tribunal saw rises in both the number of appeals and the number of cases it managed to dispose of. Appeals were up from 2,050 to 2,170 and disposals were up from 2,000 to 2,220; increases of 5.9 Per cent and 11 per cent respectively.
If you would like more information regarding employment tribunals or any other Employment matters, Rollingsons has experienced lawyers who can advise you. Please contact Aneil Balgobin via e-mail ABalgobin@rollingsons.co.uk or by telephone on 0207 611 4848.
