Member Article

Employment tribunal fees to encourage mediation and arbitration

Employment tribunal fees are to be tailored to encourage businesses and workers to settle disputes before they go to a full hearing.

Following a Ministry of Justice consultation with businesses and the public, fees will be slightly lower than initially proposed to strike a fair balance between the needs of businesses and tribunal users.

Bringing a claim or an appeal to an employment tribunal is currently free of charge with the full cost met by the taxpayer. By introducing fees, people using employment tribunals will start to contribute a significant proportion of the current £84 million cost of running the system, reducing the burden on the taxpayer.

Fees are part of the Government’s programme to promote early resolution of disputes in order to help individuals and companies to get on with their lives and businesses. The intention is to encourage people to look for alternatives – like mediation – so that tribunals remain a last resort for the most complex cases.

However, taxpayers will continue to meet the full cost of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) which provides a free service to help workers and businesses settle disputes without the need to go to a tribunal.

Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly said: “It’s not fair on the taxpayer to foot the entire £84m bill for people to escalate workplace disputes to a tribunal. We want people, where they can, to pay a fair contribution for the system they are using, which will encourage them to look for alternatives.”

He added: “It is in everyone’s interest to avoid drawn out disputes which emotionally damage workers and financially damage businesses. That’s why we are encouraging quicker, simpler and cheaper alternatives like mediation.”

Under the proposals, from summer 2013, mediation by a judge will cost £600 rather than the £750 proposed in the 2011 consultation. The lower fee to take the administratively simpler ‘level 1’ claims to a full hearing will be £390 – which drops to just £160 if settled before the hearing fee is payable.

People on low incomes may not be required to pay the full fees – under the same remission system which already exists for court users who pay fees to use the civil courts’ services. Following this extension of this exemption system, the Government will review its use across both courts and tribunals and publish a consultation later this year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Jonathan Jones .