Latest employment tribunal statistics: what do they tell us?

The Ministry of Justice has now published its quarterly employment tribunal statistics for April to June 2023. These relate to claims for the whole of the UK. We take a look at what they reveal about the employment tribunal landscape.

Number of claims and backlog

Between April and June 2023 (Q1 2023/24):

• 23,693 claims were received (33% were single claims and 67% were multiple claims). This number has remained steady compared to the last quarter (which was 23,728).
• 13,781 claims were disposed of which is a decrease on the previous quarter (19,694).

At the Employment Appeal Tribunal, 40% of the cases that went to a final hearing were dismissed.

At the end of June 2023, the backlog of cases stood at 470,898, so has increased slightly compared to the previous quarter (460,985).

The Ministry of Justice will publish jurisdictional breakdowns for disposals, timings and outcomes in future statistics. They were unable to include these in the Q1 2023/24 statistics due to incomplete checks on the data.

Types of claims and regional variations

The most common type of claim brought between April and June 2023 was for unlawful deductions from wages (6,161 claims) closely followed by breach of contract claims (5,786 claims).

The breakdown by region of the number of complaints brought reveals the monthly total in each region. The split is relatively steady over 2023, with around 5% of claims being raised in Scotland in June 2023.

Comparative figures for 2022/23 and 2021/22

The most recent annual statistics include comparison between the years 2022/23 and 2021/22:

Representation of claimants

In 2022/23, 60% of claimants were represented by a lawyer, a slight decrease of 1% on the previous year. Last year we saw an increase in the number of claimants with no representation. This trend has continued with 31% of claimants having no representation whatsoever in 2022/23.

Unfair dismissal awards

In 2022/23, compensation was awarded in 790 unfair dismissal cases, up 24% on the previous year. The average award was £12,000, a decrease compared to last year despite the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal awards increasing from 6 April 2023.

Discrimination awards

There is no cap on the compensation that can be awarded for discrimination claims. In 2022/23, compensation was awarded in 300 discrimination cases. The maximum award made was in a disability discrimination case, totalling £1,767,869. Disability discrimination also received the highest average award, closely followed by sex discrimination. See the table below for a list of the average awards in discrimination cases from highest to lowest:

What can we expect going forward?

It will be interesting to see if the number of unlawful deductions and breach of contract claims continues to rise.

Despite the limit on a week's pay rising to £643 and the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal increasing from £93,878 to £105,707 from 6 April 2023, this has not – so far at least - translated into an increase in the average unfair dismissal award.

More information

Please contact a member of Brodies Employment and Immigration team if you would like to discuss anything raised in this blog. Workbox by Brodies users can access practical guidance on Tribunal Claims, Tribunal Awards and ACAS Early Conciliation.