Dr Jonathan Lord, Senior Lecturer in Human Resources Management and Employment Law, University of Salford Business School, comments:

“The latest tribunal claim statistics from HM Courts and Tribunals Service highlight that there were 50,518 open cases in December 2022, up from 47,041 a year earlier.

“Tribunal fees have seen a significant rise in claims from 60,000 in 2013 to almost 120,000 in 2022[i]. With tribunals almost doubling in size of claims, employers and employees are not having their disputes dealt with in an expedient manner which could be due to a lack of Judges, as well as resources to efficiently process the claims. In December 2022, the MOJ (Ministry of Justice) announced £2.85m in funding and an increase to the days that Judges can sit in employment tribunals, which should help tackle these issues. But, with more and more disputes in the workplace, the number of tribunal cases is likely to continue to rise.”

[i] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/tribunals-statistics