An update from the employment tribunal National User Group (NUG) has indicated that new employment tribunal claims may not be heard until 2020 at the earliest, increasing concerns about the significant slowdown in the system.
The group’s minutes from its September meeting said there had been a 165 per cent increase in single claims, which it regards as the most reliable measure of tribunal workloads, compared to last year.
Judge Brian Doyle, president of the Employment Tribunals England and Wales, acknowledged during the NUG meeting that lengthy tribunal wait times could be down to the “reduced number of salaried judges”, and said he hoped the allocation of new judicial resources in 2019 would ease the problem, although the potential impact of additional judges has been questioned by lawyers working in the profession.
Those working across the Tribunal system say that such delays call into question whether access to justice is now truly being made available.
