I was reading a thread on here and someone rather glibly said to take the issue to a tribunal.
Rather than spend a long time typing I have pasted the current changes which show that going to a tribunal is not going to be as easy as some think from now on.
the cut’n 'paste is from an emplyment solicitors monthly bulletin, so i expect it to be fairly accurate.
I received it last week so the Monday referred is Monday July 22nd
Employment Tribunal (and Employment Appeal Tribunal) fees
Yes, it will no longer be free to use the ET system for the first time since Marc Bolan and ABBA dominated the UK charts. Issue fees, application fees (for some applications), a mediation hearing fee and full hearing fees will now apply.
Remission (non-payment of fees) will apply to some on low incomes but we expect that because many Claimants will have been dismissed and will still have to bring an unfair dismissal claim within 3 months of termination, most will not qualify as (very unfairly) for many their previous earnings (when employed) will be taken into account. Fees to issue and have an unfair dismissal claim heard will be a combined £1,200. For wages claims, the fees are very high (it may well often be cheaper to pursue such a claim in the County Court instead of the ET after Monday) at a combined £390. These fees are also not automatically recoverable. The burden of fees is nearly always to be borne by the Claimant and the Government’s plan is to deter Claimants and make more pre-ET settlements happen.
The EAT is also charging an issue fee and hearing fee.
- Unfair Dismissal cap of one year’s pay
The current cap of £74,200 will remain as the overall cap on Unfair Dismissal compensatory awards but that will only apply to those who earn over £74,200 per year. For those who earn less than this (the vast majority of the workforce), the compensatory award will be limited to the employee’s gross pay capped at a year (still subject to the normal deductions for mitigation, giving credit for new earnings etc). So for an employee who was unfairly dismissed and becomes long-term unemployed that employee will only receive a maximum compensatory award of up to a year of his or her previous pay.
- Settlement Agreements are here
This is not just a ‘re-brand’ but is designed to enable pre-termination negotiations to be easier for employers as long as they follow a new statutory code — this will no doubt allow certain discussions (as long the discussions are non-discriminatory etc) to be kept confidential from a Tribunal in most unfair dismissal cases. This will simplify the actions needed to be taken by an employer to get a Settlement Agreement ‘on the table’ and then agreed by an employee.
- ET Rules
Whilst most of the changes apply to both employees and employers equally, we believe that in reality the new Rules are more likely to be used against employees than employers, including greater strike out powers at an earlier stage, the removal of the cap on adverse costs orders (in reality, previous statistics show that more Claimants than employers have to pay these), stronger case management ‘teeth’ and so on. One positive however is that Judgments ordering compensation will now need the compensation to be paid within 2 weeks (instead of the current 6 weeks) with interest running from 2 weeks.
- New ET1s/ET3s
These are only being released on Monday — we expect they will require more information from Claimants, increasing the burden on them and they will also contain information about how low current ET awards are — with the stated aim of deterring Claimants from bringing claims in the first place.
These changes are without doubt enormous and are also largely business-friendly. The Government’s changes are designed to deter Claimants from going to ET, make more claims settle and reduce the perception of too much ‘red tape’ for businesses. Our view is that the changes will reduce access to justice for those who need it, those who are often in the weakest place — workers and employees who have recently had pay withheld by unscrupulous employers, those paid less than those of the other gender, those who have been dismissed or subjected to discrimination against.