The Government has launched a consultation on reforms to the employment tribunal system to reduce the number of claims. Proposals include extending the qualification period for employees to bring a claim of unfair dismissal from one to two years and introducing a fee for bringing a claim.
The consultation, published jointly by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Tribunals Service, concentrates on the following issues:
- Mediation and conciliation. The consultation identifies how the use of early dispute resolution can be encouraged, including increasing awareness of mediation and realistic expectations of what employment tribunals can award.
- Tackling weaker cases. The Government recognises that there have been criticisms that the tribunal system is not efficient in identifying weak and vexatious cases and that this imposes unjustifiable burdens on businesses. The proposals include allowing employment tribunals to strike out employment tribunal claims in a greater range of circumstances.
- Encouraging settlements. The consultation suggests that there should be a rule whereby either party can make a formal settlement offer to the other party as part of formal employment tribunal proceedings. This procedure would be backed by a scheme of penalties and rewards, to encourage the making, and acceptance, of reasonable settlement offers.
- Simplification of the employment tribunal process. It proposes that witness statements should be “taken as read”. Unless an employment judge directs otherwise, a witness statement would stand as the evidence-in-chief of the witness concerned and it would no longer be read out in its entirety.
- Fee for bringing an employment tribunal claim. The Government sets out its intention to introduce a fee for bringing an employment tribunal claim.
- Increasing the qualifying period for bringing an unfair dismissal claim. The Government proposes extending the qualification period for employees to bring a claim of unfair dismissal from one year to two years. Other employment rights that are available from “day one” would be unaffected.
- Financial penalties for employers. The Government is considering giving employment tribunals the power to penalise employers that have been found to have breached an individual’s rights, rather than just compensate claimants and uplift the amount of compensation in certain circumstances.
The closing date for responses to the consultation is 20 April 2011.