Employment tribunal fees on the horizon

An MoJ consultation, published last week, puts forward two options:

■ a fee of between £150-£250 to begin a claim, plus between £250-£1250 for a hearing, with no limit on the maximum award; or
■ a single fee of between £200-£600 where the maximum award is limited to £30,000, with the option of an additional fee of £1,750 where the claimant seeks an award above this amount.

Although claimants will pay the fees initially, the unsuccessful party will bear the cost of the fees. Fee waivers will be available in certain circumstances, for example, people on benefits couples whose income is less than £18,000, or couples with two children whose income is less than £23,860. The government will continue to fund Acas.

Justice Minister Jonathan Djanogly said the proposals would save the taxpayer £84m.
Employment lawyer Esther Smith, partner at Thomas Eggar, says: “If a cost system is implemented, which I think it should, it must not deter people with genuine claims but no means to pay the fees. 

“In addition, care needs to be taken to ensure that the cost system implemented does not give rise to a new legal insurance industry, setting up whizzy schemes to fund people's claims for them out of future compensation. A fee structure related to the value of the claim being pursued would be a sensible starting point. It would also ensure that claimants confirmed the value of the claim they were pursuing early, and they would then be bound to stick to this, or a lower figure as the claim progressed.  

“This in itself should aid early settlement of claims, as all too often claims proceed to hearing on legal points, without the claimants or their representatives giving any real thought to the value of what they are arguing about. The structure of fees related to the stated value of the claim would also deter people from initially over valuing or over estimating their claim at the outset.”

The consultation, Charging Fees in Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal, ends on 6 March 2012 and the fees are due to be introduced after 2013-2014. There were 218,100 claims to employment tribunals in 2010-11, a 44%  increase on 2008-09.