MoJ publishes ET receipt claims statistics report
On 18 October 2013 the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) published a statistics report that included the number of receipts for claims that Employment Tribunals (ETs) had received between January and September 2013.
Between January and May 2013 an average of 17,000 receipts were received by the ETs each month.
- 25,000 receipts were received in June 2013;
- 17,000 receipts were received in July 2013;
- 7,000 receipts were received in August 2013; and
- 14,000 receipts were received in September 2013.
The MoJ has stated that these figures have not been through the same Quality Assurance process as Official Tribunal Statistics publications.
The MoJ has speculated that the sudden increase in receipts of claims may be explained by people choosing to enter a claim prior to the introduction of Employment Tribunal (ET) fees on 29 July 2013.
Regional Judge Lee stated at an ET User Group on 27 September 2013 at the Leeds ET that the Leeds ET had not processed many of the claims it had received before 29 July 2013 until well into August 2013. Assuming that this trend applies to all of the ETs across England, Scotland and Wales, then the increase of receipts in July 2013 is likely to be significantly higher than is cited in the report, and further, the figure for the number of receipts received in August 2013 will also be inaccurate. Additionally, it should be noted that since the introduction of fees there is an increased time lag in claims being entered into the ET case management system, which is likely to render both the August and September figures for the number of receipts received inaccurate.
The MoJ has stated that the next Official Publication will be on 12 December 2013 and revisions to the figures contained in the October statistics report should be expected.
