Employment Tribunal proceedings are again under the spotlight with the recent release of two consultation papers dealing with the spiralling rise in the number of Employment Tribunal claims – the Lord Chancellor’s Department paper following on from The Leggatt Report into tribunal functions generally and the DTI paper Route to Resolution.
The findings contained in the DTI paper in particular should concern employers and small businesses. According to the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1999, which the DTI paper quotes, over half of Employment Tribunal claims are brought against businesses with under 24 employees. Added to this, the DTI report found that in the year 2000/2001 the number of new Employment Tribunal claims rose above 120,000 for the first time.
