Employment Tribunal

Published on 15th July 2012 in:
Small Business

Employment Tribunal Reform

On 14 December 2011, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) launched a public consultation ‘Charging Fees in Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal’, on proposals for two alternative fee charging structures for the employment tribunals and one proposed structure for the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT).

At present taking a claim to an employment tribunal or appealing to the EAT is free of charge and funded by the taxpayer. The fee proposals are therefore intended to relieve some of the financial burden on the taxpayer by requiring users of the employment tribunals and EAT to make a contribution to the cost of the service that they receive where they can afford to do so.

A response to the consultation was published on 13 July 2012, and it is intended to introduce a new fee charging structure in the second half of 2013.

Two main fees will be introduced:

there will be a fee of £160 to bring a claim for unlawful deduction from wages and other straightforward claims such as non-payment of a redundancy payment; if the case needs to go to hearing there will be a further fee of £230.
the fee to bring a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal or discrimination will be £250 and, if the case goes to a hearing, a further £950.

Many people on low incomes may not be required to pay the full fees – under the same remission system which already exists for court users who pay fees to use the civil courts’ services.

The wider MoJ consultation on remissions is expected to be published in Autumn 2012.

Ceridian provides a range of Employment Law services, through our partner, Ellis Whittam. For more information, contact us online or call today on 0800 0482 737.