EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL CLAIMS

POST-FEES

UPDATE

 

 

 

In my earlier post I analysed the figures that the Government published on 18 October 2013, a few days in advance of the judicial review hearing challenging the introduction of fees for bringing employment tribunal proceedings. My analysis showed significant drop in the number of claims being submitted. The drop was far greater than the Ministry of Justice’s analysis appeared to suggest. The MoJ’s line was that “Employment Tribunal receipts were around 40,000 for July – September in line with historical quarterly trends“ [my emphasis].

My analysis was that once you get past the distorting effect of the 29 July 2013, when fees were imposed, claims had dropped by over 75%. (By ‘distorting effect’ I mean where there is a specific date for fees to be introduced, it will have the effect of many claims being submitted early, to beat the fees, with a corresponding decrease in claims immediately after that date).

One big caveat that was attached to the figures by the MoJ was that they were preliminary figures and subject to revision at a later date. That was a fair point, especially given that a claim is not “accepted” until the fee is paid, or remission granted. Inevitably with a new system – and a government one that involves IT – there will be delays and errors. Claims submitted with applications for remission of fees may have been caught in the system, unable to be included in an earlier count.

The MoJ has published its updated figures today. Very little has changed for the current year, but –  surprisingly – quite a lot has for last year.

In reviewing the figures for the current year, we are most concerned with quarter 2, being July to September 2013. Unhelpfully the information published by the MoJ does not follow the same format as that published in October. No information is given on the number of single claims submitted, so I am not able to revise my analysis on those (a drop of from over 4,000 claims per month on average, to  just 1,003 this September).

We do have figures for multiple claims. The provisional figures showed 1,034 multiple claims accepted in the quarter; the revised figures show 1,061, a modest revision. Unfortunately, a month-by-month breakdown is not given so a similar comparison as in my last post cannot be done.

One can also look at “receipts” for the quarter. In my view this is not as good a measure as single or even multiple claims, but we can at least see to what extent there have been revisions from the provisional figures. The figures in October showed receipts of 38,963. Today’s revised figures show receipts of 39,514. A modest increase of about 1.4%.

Therefore, now we have the revised figures, we can see that very little has changed. The number of claims remains significantly down following the introduction of fees.

What is curious is what has happened to the figures for 2012/13. These show a significant downwards revision. In July and October 2013 figures were published for 2012/13. These showed the following:

	2012/13
	Apr- Jun	Jul- Sep	Oct- Dec	Jan- Mar	Annual Total
Total Claims Accepted	51,463	47,614	45,240	63,715	208,032

The figures published today show a significant difference:

	2012/13
	Apr-Jun	Jul-Sep	Oct-Dec	Jan-Mar	Annual Total
Total Claims Accepted	40,305	47,789	45,710	57,737	191,541

No note or explanation is provided in the commentary that accompanies the figures. It would be unusual for such revisions to be of this size and made so late. Needless to say, enquiries are being made.

If one wanted to show a consistent downward pattern in employment tribunal claims since, say, May 2010, then it would certainly be helpful to revise 2012/13 down by at least this amount. I’m not being cynical and I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation…………..

@AlexLock