Employment tribunals - 25% up!

A shade over 115,000 applications found their way to employment tribunals in 2005-6, an increase of over 30,000 against the previous year.

Claims connected with Working Time regulations increased 10-fold (to 35,000), Equal Pay cases doubled to 17,000 and cases brought against employers for failing to issue written statements of particulars of employment (employment contracts) increased by a third. Interestingly cases concerning the payment of the National Minimum Wage declined slightly against the previous year, although the DTI has indicated that it will be focussing on this area in 2007.

The introduction of statutory minimum procedures for disciplinary action, dismissals and grievances in October 2004 were designed to reduce the burden on the tribunal system, but as the figures demonstrate, this has not been achieved. Bill Larke, Managing Director of HRR Solutions Ltd (providers of myhrdept.co.uk) commented, "The current regulations are too complicated, and many cases reported concerned technicalities with their interpretation, for example, the circumstances upon which submitting a grievance can extend the normal time limits for lodging a tribunal application. The regulations need to be simplified and we look forward to reviewing the DTI's efforts in this area."