Rise in waiting times for tribunal claims

Waiting times for having employment tribunal claims heard have risen substantially, according to information presented by justice under-secretary Mike Freer. Freer was responding to a written question from Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, about average waiting times for hearings.

A table of waiting times, provided in February 2023, shows the average weeks from receipt of a claim to first hearing was 30 in 2010 and remained close to that for a number of years. But in 2019, before the pandemic, this increased significantly to 38 weeks, rising to 49 weeks in March 2021.

The data includes both single and multiple claims and is based on first hearings within that period. These figures, therefore, do not indicate the number of claims actually concluding within that time.

It seems the government may wish to address long waiting times by excluding non-legal members, such as trade unionists, sitting on tribunal panels.

One of the proposals in its recent consultation, Panel Composition in the Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal, relates to whether the inclusion of non-legal members is always desirable.

The consultation document states: “Including non-legal members on the panel may often affect the length of time involved in the hearing of a case … Listing hearings convenient for three members of a panel is often more difficult than it is for a judge alone.”

The consultation closed on 27 March 2023.