Employment tribunal fees

Did you know that running the employment tribunal system costs the taxpayer approximately £84m a year? At the moment, a claimant doesn’t have to pay to enter an employment tribunal claim.
The Government wanted to change this, so from summer 2013 (date yet to be announced but likely to be at the end of July) any individual who wishes to issue an employment tribunal claim will be required to pay a fee and (if it goes to court) a further hearing fee. Have a look at the Q&A document for those who fancy some bedtime reading. The table below shows the fees for issuing a claim and having it heard in court. Type A claims are simple, uncomplicated claims such as unlawful deduction of wages, statutory redundancy payments etc. Type B claims are for most claims including unfair dismissal, discrimination and whistle blowing.





The tribunal fees naturally places a financial responsibility on employees. It is hoped that vexatious claims won’t even reach tribunal, so as a result, this is a good thing. Currently a cost order can be made against an employee whose claim doesn’t have merit, but this has to be agreed by a tribunal Judge. However, many disgruntled employees who want their day in court will go to great lengths to have their claim heard. There has been and always will be a cost for any defence by an employer; which could be spent in the time and effort or paying a solicitor to defend any action.
On the flip side of the coin, is it ethical to place tribunal fees on an employee who has genuinely been mistreated by a rogue employer and cannot afford the fees? Do they simply shrug their shoulders and move on whilst an employee who can afford the fee takes forward a claim to the court? It should be noted that if individuals feel they cannot afford to pay the fees, they can put in an application to the HMCTS (HM Courts & Tribunals Service) and if successful, the whole or part of the fee will be waived.


The employment tribunal system is changing. Let’s see what the shake-up brings. Does this strike a balance for you as an employer?


Author:  The author of this blog is Sue Tumelty, the Managing Director of national company The HR Dept. The HR Dept prides itself on providing local and personal HR support to small and medium size businesses

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Compensation for unfair dismissal to be reduced

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill currently being discussed in Parliament introduces the power to adjust the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal. This is the award made on top of the basic award.to employees who win their case for unfair dismissal and have suffered loss of earnings.

The current cap is a massive £74,200 which added to the maximum basic award of £13,500 inevitably raises expectations that employees could get this amount and may cause employers to enter into higher settlements accordingly.

In fact the median award for unfair dismissal last year (2011-2012) was around £4,000 and the average about £8,000.

This is good news for employers as in future the maximum compensatory award is to be capped at 12 month’s salary.

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Settlement agreements - making it easier to sack staff?

Settlement agreements - making it easier to sack staff?

The Government wants to make it easier to sack staff. To be fair it wants to make it easier to hire staff too. However, its consultation on ‘Ending the Employment relationship’ has led to a number of proposals contained in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill currently being considered by Parliament.

It’s proving to be something of a headache as many of the proposed employment law changes due to be implemented in April have been put back to later in the year.

In the summer the Government proposes that compromise agreements will become settlement agreements. Is this just a change of name? Not really because currently discussions leading to the termination of an employee’s contract can only be held under the privilege of ‘without prejudice’ if there is a ‘dispute’ that is being ‘compromised’. Otherwise merely hinting that an employee should leave poses a risk to the employer of an immediate claim for constructive dismissal!

A Settlement Agreement does not require this. Therefore an employer will be free to approach an employee and commence settlement conversations which will be confidential and may not be referred to subsequently if they break down.

ACAS is currently consulting on a draft statutory code of practice and supporting documents, including template letters which include the line ‘you may wish to consider the following offer to leave on agreed terms’.  To be able to do this without any comeback sounds great, but to look at the devil in the detail go to the ACAS website http://www.acas.org.uk/media/pdf/k/s/Acas-consultation-on-Draft-Code-of-Practice-on-Settlement-Agreements-February-2013.pdf

 

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Employment Laws Delayed again!

Employment laws delayed again!

George Osborne’s idea for introducing employee shareholders received a blow recently when the House of Lords voted down the proposal in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill. The House of Commons is to debate this on 22 April.

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill has also been held up. The House of Commons will be debating further amendments on 16 April.

The Government recently published ‘Employment Law 2013: progress on reform’ with a new implementation timetable for its changes. Many of these were due to come into force in April but have now been delayed.

So what is definitely happening in April?

6 April: Changes to rules on collective redundancies and new ACAS guidance – the 90 day consultation period for 100+ redundancies is reduced to 45 days

What may be happening in April? (Timescale still uncertain!)

Repeal of 3^rd party harassment provisions in the Equality Act making it no longer an employer’s responsibility if an employee is harassed by a 3^rd party such as a customer

Abolition of statutory discrimination questionnaires, which currently enable employees to ask lots of detailed questions to elicit information that may be helpful to a discrimination claim

Introduction of ‘caste’ as a 10^th protected characteristic in the Equality Act

The 2 year qualifying period for unfair dismissal is removed in cases where the reason for dismissal is political opinion or affiliation.
This follows a recent case (Redfearn v UK) at the ECHR when it was held that it was a breach of a BNP member’s human rights not to have the opportunity to claim unfair dismissal for being sacked for his political opinion. This brings dismissals for political beliefs in line with other forms of discrimination.

Consolidation of National Minimum Wage Regulations

By Simon Morgan:  HRRescuer

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Important changes to Parental Leave

This is just to remind you that effective from 8 March 2013, parental leave has been extended from 13 weeks to 18 weeks per child up to 5 years (or 18 if the child is disabled). This type of leave is unpaid so does not get taken up very often. There is also a qualifying period of one year's service and an annual limit of 4 weeks per child per year.

The change has been made to comply with the revised EU Parental Leave Directive. It is a relatively minor change; more substantial changes are on the way with the Government planning to extend the right to request flexible working in 2014 and to introduce 'shared parental leave' in 2015. 

If you have a reference to parental leave in your employee handbook, you can either make this simple amendment yourself or contact me.

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February and beyond

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of changes to employment law and statutory payment increases being enforced throughout the year. Ones to take note of in February include a rise in statutory redundancy pay which from 1st February goes up to £450 a week. This figure is used to calculate a week’s redundancy pay if employees earn more than that amount a week.

 

The statutory guarantee payment for lay-off also increases to £24.20 a day. There is also an interesting and controversial new contract between an employer and an employee coming into force in April 2013. These are called ‘employee-owner contracts’. The Government opened a consultation to these contracts and a mighty 92% of respondents were negative or neutral towards it, so you may be forgiven for wondering why the Government decided to proceed. In an ‘employee-owner contract’, an employee receives company shares in exchange for waiving certain employment rights.

 

These ‘certain employment rights’ that employees will be giving up will include rights surrounding unfair dismissal, redundancy pay and the right to request flexible working. If a mother wants to return to work from maternity leave, she’ll have to provide 16 weeks’ notice instead of the usual eight under the employee-owner contract.

 

Chancellor George Osborne announced that companies of any size will be able to use this kind of contract but it has been principally intended for SMEs. We do question why you would want to give away part of your company to a brand new, unproven employee for very little protection when discrimination claims can still be made. This new contract shouldn’t be viewed as a way for rogue employers to mistreat their employees. We’ll report on this more in due course as we are still waiting to see the draft contracts that are yet to be issued!

 

http://www.hrdept.co.uk/offices/south-east/south-east-london-and-north-kent

 

Return to work interviews

With the Norovirus plaguing workplaces during this infectious season, dealing with sickness absence can be time consuming and costly for smaller businesses. For every member of staff that falls ill, do you conduct return to work interviews, regardless of the length of absence?

If not, we recommend you do.

 

We have seen how straight forward structured RTW interviews can reduce short term absence (sickies) and identify underlying causes for absence to help mitigate further leave. RTW interviews should be held with an employee the day they return to work. The line manager can ascertain information regarding the absence and complete any necessary paperwork such as a self-certification form.

 

Just doing this every time will improve attendance and identify anyone with an underlying complaint that may be classed as a disability. If you need further advice on how to hold a return to work interview, we’d be more than happy to help.

 

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