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3rd February 2011

NEWS IN BRIEF

The government last week announced plans to reform the way in which workplace disputes are resolved.

The most contentious are the proposals to increase the qualification period for unfair dismissal from one to two years and to introduce fees for lodging employment tribunal claims.

Other key recommendations in the consultation document relating to England, Scotland and Wales include:

• Requiring parties to go through a pre-claim conciliation process by lodging the claim first with Acas. Only after a specified period (up to one month) can the claim then be lodged with the tribunal.
• Extending the jurisdictions where judges can sit alone without wing members to include unfair dismissal.
• Tackling “weaker” cases by allowing judges to issue a deposit order at any stage of the proceedings, to make the deposit order test “more flexible” and for the Employment Appeal Tribunal to be able to make deposit orders.
• Increasing the deposit and cost limits for “weak and vexatious claims” from £500 and £10,000 to £1,000 and £20,000 respectively.
• Reviewing the formula for calculating employment tribunal awards and statutory redundancy payment limits.
• Introducing financial penalties for employers found to have breached rights in order to encourage greater compliance, payable to the Exchequer rather than the claimant.

Victoria Phillips, Thompsons’ head of employment rights said:

“The consultation principles are based on largely anecdotal claims that a high proportion of Tribunal claims are unmeritorious and should not have been brought in the first place.

“Our own statistics show that most claims lodged with employment tribunals are for employees with two or more years service, so the proposal to change the qualifying period is being driven by anecdote not evidence.

“It is fundamentally about access to justice. While a fee may well stop people bringing claims, it doesn't mean they have not been badly treated or, for example, that they weren't due unpaid wages. There are a lot of employers who simply won't pay up until they've received a claim form. Fees will penalise the most vulnerable workers and deny them access to justice.”

The consultation closes on 20 April.

To download the consultation document, go to: http://www.bis.gov.uk

At the same time, the government published what it calls “The Employer’s Charter”, which sets out what employers are entitled to do when managing their staff.

For instance, it tells employers they can:

• make an employee redundant if their business takes a downward turn
• ask an employee to take a pay cut
• withhold pay from an employee when they are on strike

For more details, go to: http://www.businesslink.gov.uk

Also this week

Claimant's Conduct

Out of Time