Jenny Willott, the Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs said yesterday that the Government will be reviewing the tribunal fees. We have recently commented on the huge drop in tribunal claimants in our blog: Dramatic Decline in Employment Tribunal Claims
At a conference attended by Joanne Kavanagh, Head of Employment, Ms Willott went on to say that it was too early to ascertain the impact of the introduction of tribunal fees but that the Government would be monitoring the situation. The Unison Legal Officer confirmed that the union has now decided to appeal the Judicial Review decision to the Court of Appeal. Ms Davies from Unison, also commented that assurances had been given by the Government that tribunals would be able to order a respondent who lost at tribunal to repay the claimant’s tribunal fees; although this was not as yet in force.
The Institute of Directors representative commented that the previous tribunal situation with the high levels of claims without merit, was unworkable and that further investigation was needed into the statistics on the numbers of claimants before any action was taken on the fees.
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