The ancient art of fiddling while Rome burns is obviously still flourishing in government, as witness the release last week of a new consultation paper on fees for Employment Tribunal claimants. My colleague Alexander Bradbury has the official line here. We have been this way before. The ET started charging claim and hearing fees in … Continue Reading
In 2013, the Government introduced fees for bringing claims to the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunal. Although they were then abolished following a Supreme Court ruling in 2017, the issue is back in the spotlight and the subject of fee-rocious debate once more following the publication of a Government consultation into their re-introduction. … Continue Reading
The Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service have now rolled out the details of the scheme to refund claimants and respondents who paid a fee at an Employment Tribunal or the Employment Appeal Tribunal between 29 July 2013 and 26 July 2017. This is of course the necessary result of the … Continue Reading
There was a great deal of entirely unfair schadenfreude directed at the Government last month over its abject failure to justify the Employment Tribunal fees regime in front of the Supreme Court. After all, apart from the report of its own Justice Committee, the views of everyone else from both sides of industry and all … Continue Reading
High up on the list of candidates for 2014’s Most Nakedly Transparent Political Gesture Awards was the introduction of a new Section 12A into the Employment Tribunals Act 1996. This was a measure designed to bring bad employers to heel in the Employment Tribunal by the imposition of financial penalties of between £100-£5,000 where the … Continue Reading
Last month saw the publication of the Government consultation document on reforming the Employment Tribunal system, a joint production between the Ministry of Justice and BEIS. For when the conversation falls into a flat spin at your next dinner party, here are the highlights, using the word at its most generous. In summary, the reforms … Continue Reading
Those few of our readers who are inexplicably not committed followers of the House of Commons Justice Committee have missed a little cracker this week with the issue of its report on Court and Tribunal fees. As everyone in the business knows, the introduction of fees in 2013 knocked the bottom out of Employment Tribunal … Continue Reading
Cast your mind back to a time before July 2013 when the perception was that businesses were regularly on the receiving end of Employment Tribunal claims from disgruntled employees and ex-employees. Times were good for lawyers and bad for employers, one might have said. So sensing a win-win-win (bash lawyers, limit spurious claims against political … Continue Reading
