UK: Employment Tribunals – quarterly statistics show a substantial increase in the number of Employment Tribunal claims brought

The latest Employment Tribunal quarterly statistics show that the number of claims brought by a single claimant in the period September to December 2017 was up 90% on the same period in the previous year. This is the highest increase in over four years and is likely to be explained by the abolition of Tribunal fees on 26 July 2017.

Since the abolition of Employment Tribunal fees, around 3,000 new cases have been lodged every month. This is significantly lower than the number of cases lodged before the introduction of tribunal fees, when the average was around 5,000 each month.

Since the launch in October 2017 of the Tribunal fees refund scheme for those who paid Tribunal fees before they were ruled to be unlawful, 4,800 applications for refunds were made. 3,400 refunds with a total value of £2.8m were paid out in the period to 31 December 2017.