Financial Times, City AM, Personnel Today
The queue of nearly 50,000 cases may continue to rise as businesses adjust to the Labour Government’s growing legislation on worker’s rights.
Philip Cameron, partner at law firm Littler, which obtained the figures, said the long backlog was “just not fair on either party” and that “leaving businesses in legal limbo makes it harder for them to operate”, especially small and medium-sized enterprises with relatively fewer resources.
“The government needs to supply proper additional funding to help the tribunals cope with the current backlog and deal with the likely surge in disputes that is expected after the Employment Rights Bill becomes law,” he added.
But Cameron warned that making unfair dismissal a day one right “even with probation periods permitted, is going to result in a big surge in claims”.
“On top of that is the possibility of disputes arising from companies making redundancies as they try to cope with the recent increase in the minimum wage and employers’ national insurance,” he added.
