Employment tribunal claims

Employment tribunal claims in the period October to December 2019

In relation to employment tribunal claims, clearance times and disposals in the period October to December 2019, the report outlines that:

• in relation to single claims:
  • 10,887 single claims were received—up 25% on the same quarter in 2018 (and 1,120 less than last quarter’s figure of 12,007 — although this figure for the last quarter includes around 1,700 cases that will be reclassified as multiple claims once fully vetted)
  • the average time for clearance of a single claim was 36 weeks—up six weeks compared to the same period in 2018 (but only two weeks more than in the last quarter)
• in relation to multiple claims:
  • 15,427 multiple claims (where two or more people bring claims, arising out of the same or very similar circumstances, which are processed together) were received—up 86% on the same quarter in 2018 (and 1,968 more than the last quarter)
  • these claims related to 570 multiple claim cases (an average of 13 claims per multiple case)—down from 578 cases in the same period a year ago (with an average of 9 claims per case)
  • the average clearance time for multiple claims was 149 weeks—up 18 weeks compared to the same quarter last year
  • it should be noted that the volume of multiple claims tends to be more volatile as they can contain a high number of claims against a single employer

References: MOJ Tribunal statistics (quarterly) — October to December 2019— Annex C

on average each claim received contained complaints under 1.6 employment tribunal jurisdictions (referred to as ‘jurisdictional complaints’ in the statistical table) and the top three jurisdictional complaints were:

• under the Working Time Directive
• unfair dismissal
• unauthorised deductions (formerly Wages Act claims)

• the total caseload outstanding for employment tribunals at the end of December 2019 had increased by 28% for single claims and by 10% for multiple claims compared to the same time last year
• as for the disposal of cases in October to December 2019, the employment tribunal disposed of 11,334 claims—up 7% overall on the same quarter last year. This breaks down to:
  • a 19% increase in single claim disposals, and
  • an 8% decrease in multiple claim disposals

References: MOJ Tribunal statistics (quarterly) — October to December 2019— tables

Source: LexisNexis