Legal Update March 2015

The Ministry of Justice have published statistics on employment tribunal claims for the period between October to December 2014. The introduction of employment tribunal fees in July 2013 led to an accelerated decline in claims in October to December 2013, but it appears that the reduction in claims is still continuing.The statistics show that the number of single claims received by the employment tribunal had decreased 12% from the same period in 2013
 
The number of multiple claim cases, which are cases that involve more than one complaint against the same employer, increased from 400 to 622 in the previous quarter. Prior to this, the number of multiple claims had also been falling, showing that the number of multiple claims are more volatile
 
The Ministry of Justice statistics indicate that around a third of applications for issue fee remission were successful (or partially successful), whereas two thirds of hearing fee remission applications were successful. Remission applications are usually submitted in circumstances where an applicant considers that they cannot afford the employment tribunal fees on the basis that they are on benefits or only have a low income.

Clive Fricker, March, 2015