Employment Tribunal Award Statistics 2010 - 2011

Posted: Thursday 1 September 2011

Article by Innes Clark, Employment Law Partner.

Every year the Tribunals Service publishes statistics on the number and nature of claims which have been raised over the course of the preceding twelve months.

We already knew that Employment Tribunals (ET) received an overall total of 218,100 claims during 2010-11, an 8% fall compared to the previous year (but a 44% increase on 2008-09). Compared to 2009-10 this comprised a 15% fall in single claims and a 4% fall in multiple claims. More details are contained in my previous blog

Now with the more detail statistics being published, some interesting trends have been revealed.

The largest sum awarded by the Tribunal in 2010/2011 was £289,167 and related to a sex discrimination claim. You will notice from the figures below that the maximum unfair dismissal award of £181,754 is in excess of the statutory cap of £68,400 but remember that this cap does not apply where the unfair dismissal is for whistleblowing or for raising certain health and safety reasons.

As ever Tribunals are extremely reluctant to award costs to the successful party and costs were awarded in only 487 ET claims (355 of those awards being to the Respondent). This is an insignificant number compared with the 218,100 claims accepted by the Tribunal. The maximum costs award was £83,000 but the median was only £1,273 which of course is far less than the cost an employer is likely to incur in defending a claim.

I’ve listed the maximum, average and median awards for unfair dismissal and discrimination claims:-

The full report is available here.

You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/Innes_Clark.

Tags: Employment Law - Employees, Employment Law - Employers, Miscellaneous

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