Tribunal claims plummet

The number of tribunal claims lodged in the October to December quarter of 2010 has fallen dramatically, the latest official statistics reveal.

The number of claims lodged with the employment tribunal fell by just over half (51%) to 39,900 compared with the same quarter 2009.

There was a 62% fall in multiple claims and an 11% fall in single claims — 17,400 down to 15,500. The large fall in multiple claims is partly explained by the fact that in the third quarter of 2009 there were a large number of resubmitted airline cases.

Employment tribunals disposed of 24,300 claims in the quarter. The figures, exclude claims dealt with by the Nottingham and Leicester tribunals for which there was no data. Over half (57%) of the cases disposed of by the employment tribunals service in this period were single cases.

Of the 51,000 jurisdictional claims two out of five (39%) involved unfair dismissal, breach of contract or redundancy claims. Meanwhile, claims involving unauthorised deductions accounted for 17% of cases.

The overworked tribunal system was only able to deal with 60% of cases in the target time (that is, the substantive hearing occurred within six months of the claim/appeal being lodged with employment tribunals). For Employment Appeal Tribunal cases, around two-thirds (68%) of cases were dealt with in the target time.