All Change in the Employment Tribunals

We blogged in January about the introduction of Tribunal fees.

More changes lie ahead.

Firstly from 6th April 2012 the qualifying period for eligibility to claim unfair dismissal increases from 12 months to 2 years.

Employees who started work on or before 5th April will still benefit from the old rule.

But new employees will have to wait 2 complete years before they are entitled to make a claim for unfair dismissal.

That means 2 years of uncertainty in a job climate that is already filled with uncertainties for many.

But we’ve blogged before that Government seems to be deaf to the many well-informed arguments about this.

I was intrigued to see that the latest Tribunal statistics show that for the period July to September 2011, the number of new claims received by the Employment Tribunals dropped 30% compared to the same period in 2010.

30 per cent.

Our experience is that, given the difficult economic times, many workers are refusing to stick their heads above the parapet, and we suspect that that accounts in no small part for the drop off in Tribunal claims.

But what with new fees to pursue claims, and longer waiting periods before one is eligible to pursue them at all, and much political posturing about the importance to business of “cutting red tape” we have to pose the question: with the number of Tribunal cases dropping off sharply, is Government trying to fix something that isn’t even broken?

Paul Scholey - Senior Partner
 
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