The Government has launched a consultation regarding reform of the Employment Tribunal system. Key proposals include increasing the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims from 1 year to 2 years, requiring all claims to be submitted to ACAS in the first instance for pre-claim conciliation and increasing the upper limits for deposit and expenses from £500 and £10,000 to £1,000 and £20,000 respectively. One aspect of the consultation which has attracted our attention is the proposal to introduce a fee for lodging a claim with the Employment Tribunal. One media outlet has predicted that this could be as much as £500 per claim. If this were the case, based on the 236,000 tribunal claims raised last year, this would result in around £118 million flowing into the tribunal system.
MacRoberts Solicitors, February 2011
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