Employment Statistics Quarterly: January to March 2025 – Cause for concern
Last week the government published Employment Tribunal statistics for the last quarter (January to March Q4 2024/25)
Head of Employment Law, Kate Lea, explains...
The results make for sobering, albeit not surprising reading for many employment law practitioners and sees a continuing increase in the number of cases and a decrease in the number of case disposals.
Specifically, Single Employment Tribunal receipts and disposals both increased by 23 % and 6 % respectively in 2024/25 compared to the same period a year ago. Open case load has increased by 32 % over the same period as receipts have continued to exceed disposals. Multiple claims have also increased over this period.
For years many employment law practitioners have been raising concern about the fact that Employment Tribunals across the country are struggling to cope. This is nothing new. A legacy of the abolition of Employment Tribunals fees, Covid and lack of funding. The government appears live to the issue and have implemented new case management practices and have recruited more Employment Tribunal judges aimed at tackling the backlog. However, whilst there are signs of improvement in some areas many Tribunals continue to feel the strain.
The recent tribunal statistics allow little room for optimism. Unfair dismissal cases make up the largest part of the case load and with the government reforms that will see the right to pursue an inform dismissal claim become a day one right, inevitably the number of such claims are set only to rise further.
One must question how an already strained Tribunal system will cope. The government’s reforms were intended to bolster workers’ rights. However, unless the government commits to tackling the administrative backlog the legislation changes are little more than lip service offering little, if any practical benefit to workers deterred and unable to enforce their statutory rights.
It will be interesting to see the government’s response. Will implementation of Employment Tribunal fees go to the top of the agenda? Watch this space!
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