• Care home – HR support
• Contracts of employment
• Children’s nursery – HR support
• Disciplinary procedures
• Employee handbooks
• Employment tribunal claims
• Equality Act 2010
• Flexible working requests
• Maternity leave rights
• Redundancy procedures & business restructuring
• Restrictive covenants – employer
• Retirement age issues
• Sickness absence
• TUPE regulations
• Whistleblowing

Employment Tribunal Claims

Ensure that your employment law solicitor is a specialist in dealing with claims.

At Blue Sky Law, Lee Jefcott is an experienced employment tribunal representative and has built up an expertise in defending employers in Tribunals throughout the UK.

To talk to Lee about your defence to a claim, or steps to be taken to minimise the risk of claims call
0161 618 1032 or click here

The number of employment tribunal claims brought by employees continues to rise. This is leading to delays in dealing with claims and hearing dates and final resolution of claims is being put back. To address these problems, and also as a result of intense lobbying from employers and business groups, the Government now proposes controversial employment tribunal reforms.

These include:

• Requiring Claimants to pay a fee to issue a claim (currenty the system is free to use)
• Making it harder to bring unfair dismissal claims by increasing the qualifying period of employment from 1 year to 2 years
• Compulory involvement of ACAS at the beginning of a claim
• Beefing up the Tribunal’s powers to award costs and to strike out claims without merit

There is a healthy scepticism amongst employers that the odds are stacked in an employee’s favour in the Tribunal process.

Employment Tribunals are judicial bodies who decide upon disputes raised by employees against their employer. They were designed to be informal but have become much more formalised over recent years as the number of types of claim that they can adjudicate on has increased. To most employers, Employment Tribunals are akin to Courts. There is a panel who will decide the case. Formal evidence is given and there is cross examination of witnesses and Bundles of documents.

Once liability has been decided upon, if the claims are successful then the panel will go on to deal with “remedy” which is normally an assessment of the amount if compensation payable. This is normally based upon a loss of earnings in cases where the employee has been dismissed. There is normally a cap on the amount of compensation that a Tribunal can award in claims of unfair dismissal. However, no such cap exists in respect of other claims such as whistleblowing and discrimination and in cases of medium to high earners, awards can be substantial.

Most employers instruct a legal representative to defend claims on their behalf. However, it is usually not possible to recover legal costs from the employee so the employer must normally bear their own costs whether they win or lose (or settle).

Claims are very easy to bring. There is an online form which can be completed in minutes.

Successive Governments have said things about the need to weed out the misconceived, weak and vexatious claims. Although there is a power for the Tribunal to strike such claims out at an early stage, in reality this does not happen very often.

What can an employer do to minimise the risk of employment tribunal claims?

1. Do not employ anyone – have your work done by self employed consultants or subcontract it. In our view this is not a good strategy. Aside from the fact that it may be unworkable, Tribunals are very alive to employment relationships “dressed up” as self employment or consultancies.
2. Have properly documented contracts of employment and an Employee Handbook – a good start. Whilst this will get you off on the right foot, it will not be the complete answer.
3. Take advice before dismissing an employee – always recommended – but take advice well in advance of matters coming to a head as there are then more options to consider. A good employment law solicitor will guide you through the process to minimise the risk of a claim being successful, whilst always remaining practical and pragmatic.
4. Have a written disciplinary procedure – again a good start but you will need to ensure that it is workable, that your managers are familiar with it and are confident in operating it.
5. Obtain insurance against claims – this is possible and there are many policies out there. You may wish to talk to your insurance broker. A drawback of many policies is that they only respond to claims where the employer has sought legal advice from a specific provider and followed it. This may not always suit your business.
6. Take a sensible view – most employers will face a dispute at some point and may face a claim. However, by a combination of having the basic procedures in place which are followed, and taking advice on key steps, the heat can be taken out of a claim. It may be appropriate then to look at ways in which the claim could be settled or resolved without the need to incur large legal expenses and lots of wasted time.

Ensure that your employment law solicitor is a specialist in dealing with claims. At Blue Sky Law, Lee Jefcott is an experienced employment tribunal representative and has built up an expertise in defending employers in Tribunals throughout the UK. To talk to Lee about your defence to a claim, or steps to be taken to minimise the risk of claims call 0161 618 1032 or click here

Disclaimer – The contents of this page are provided for general guidance only and do not replace the need to obtain legal advice about any given situation.