There has been much talk of a claims culture and businesses being overrun with employment tribunal claims. To some degree the media created picture is misleading in that the figures being used (236,100 claims in 2009-10) include a number of large scale class actions which artificially inflate the figures. In addition these figures arose in a recessionary climate.
However even using the figures published by the tribunal service as they stand they reveal that less than 1% of the working population brought a claim against their employer in 2009-10. So while the number of claims as a free standing figure may be high, it is the case that statistically very few of the 29, 000, 000 employees working in the economy actually brought a claim against their employer last year.
Nevertheless the government has published a consultation document on reforming access to the employment tribunal system; “Resolving Workplace Disputes: A Consultation”. The proposed changes are based on the belief that more needs to be done to support and encourage parties to resolve disputes earlier, and to try and preserve the working relationship between employer and employee. But where the relationship is broken to enable the parties to bring matters to a close in the quickest and least painful way.
One of the proposed changes most publicised is that the service qualification for claiming unfair dismissal may be increased to 2 years. This has been welcomed by employer organisations. However on the government's own assessment this will at best reduce the number of claims by 4,700 per year and so will not have a particularly significant impact on the figures.
It may be that such changes are being mooted for reasons of political capital rather than for assisting in a drive for growth and freeing up employers from regulation.
There has been a number of attempts in the past at making the tribunal system more efficient and seeking to reduce the number of claims registered at tribunal. The most recent such attempt being the introduction of the statutory disputes procedure which seemed to have the opposite effect. So it remains to be seen as to whether the proposed changes published by the government will have the desired impact if they are adopted.
