Employment tribunals are struggling to cope with a swelling backlog of claims that has risen from 13,360 to 23,700 outstanding cases in one year.
The 77% growth has occurred since fees were abolished in July 2017, and comes as tribunals suffer a shortage of staff, judges and resources.
Employment lawyer Sophie Vanhegan, partner at GQ|Littler, said: ‘There is clearly a bottleneck which needs dealing with.
‘The first step would be to increase the budget so that tribunals can take on more staff. A review of the claims procedure to reduce the number of cases that actually reach tribunals may also be needed longer term.
‘Tribunals have done extremely well on a shoestring budget but this is not sustainable long term.’
Staff numbers at tribunals fell from 19,200 in July 2013, when fees were reintroduced, to 15,990 in 2018. There were 36,900 single claims in 2018, compared to 19,600 in 2017.
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