According to one respondent, the system is ‘scandalously under-resourced. They just seem to be drowning.’
Another said: ‘It is virtually impossible to get through to the tribunals by telephone which is sometimes necessary for urgent matters.’
More than 40% of employment lawyers were having to wait more than a year for their clients’ cases to come to tribunals, and nearly all the respondents had experience of final hearings being listed at least six months into the future.
The lawyers reported tribunals now take longer to handle all tasks including answering the phone, dealing with urgent applications and making orders and judgments, when compared with March 2020. Tribunals in London scored particularly poorly in these respects.
More than 700 lawyers (one quarter of ELA’s membership) responded to the survey.
Caspar Glyn QC, chair of the ELA legislation and policy committee, said: ‘Put simply, there are too few staff who have too much to do and too little time to deal with tribunal users and their applications.’
However, the survey highlighted the effectiveness of remote hearings, although some shortcomings were identified, and 45% of lawyers expressed concern about the impact on witness evidence.
Jennifer Sole, ELA committee member, said the Cloud Video Platform (CVP) used for the hearings could be leveraged for greater success in three ways.
‘The first is to make high-quality explanation of the process by the sitting judge a routine element,’ she said.
‘The second is to remain conscious of the connectivity issues, difficulties with cross-examination, and the lack of communication channels to clients and advocates, which are the biggest issues impacting remote hearing effectiveness; and finally, implement better chat functions, screen sharing, and document transmission functionality on the CVP.’
