New tribunal statistics published

The Ministry of Justice has now published the statistics for the period of October to December 2014.

Although this decision is not binding on other tribunals, it is important because, it neatly resolves the potential conflict between EU law and domestic legislation. If it is followed in other cases, it may pave the way for more holiday pay claims to be brought involving different types of commission schemes and potentially discretionary bonuses and other forms of remuneration.

The new figures show that the number of claims submitted to the Tribunal remains low. However, a small increase in claims from last quarter is shown.

The statistics show that 4,386 claims were lodged at Tribunal this quarter; this was a slight increase on last quarter. However, more significantly, it was a 12% decrease in claims issued compared with the same quarter last year.

Tribunals introduced fees in the summer of 2013. Claimants must now pay a fee to submit their claim and later, a further fee to have a hearing for that claim.

Claimants can submit a “fee remission application” which, if successful, can reduce the fees or mean they are exempt from paying them all together.  This is the first set of statistics that includes information on the fee remission applications.

The latest figures show that through the period 30th September 2013 to 30th September 2014, 11,338 issue fee remission applications were made in comparison to only 2,949 hearing fee remission applications.

However, notably, only approximately one third of issue fee remission applications were successful whereas two thirds of hearing fee remission applications were successful.