Tribunals Service Annual Report.

The Tribunals Service has published its annual report and accounts for the year 1 April 2007 to 31 March 2008. This covers all tribunals but includes statistics relating to claims made to the Employment Tribunal (ET). More detailed information on the different types of claim dealt with by ETs and the levels of compensation awarded are expected to be contained in the Employment Tribunals Service annual report, due to be published later this year.

The total number of ET claims accepted for the year 2007/2008 was 189,348. This was 42 per cent higher than anticipated and compares with a total of 143,474 for the previous year. The increase is largely attributed to the number of multiple claims, particularly equal pay claims made against local authorities and the NHS. The number of claims disposed of fell from 107,412 to 86,237. The increased receipt of multiple claims was cited as the cause of the fall in disposals, as these claims can take longer to process, and contributed to a 73 per cent increase in the number of outstanding cases (from 138,200 in April 2007 to 239,300 in March 2008).

Performance indicators showed that 79 per cent of ET cases began within 26 weeks of receipt of the claim. The target set was 75 per cent. In 88 per cent of cases, the average time taken to issue the written decision of the ET to the applicant following the hearing was within the four-week target set.

The report and accounts can be found athttp://www.tribunals.gov.uk/Documents/Publications/239_008_TS_AR_final.pdf.

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