Charging Fees in Employment Tribunals and the ... - Ministry of Justice

Charging Fees in Employment Tribunals and the Employment Appeal Tribunal Summary ofresponsesSummary of responses and policy decisions10. A total of 140 responses were received to the consultation. This included 25from unions and other organisations representing the views of employees, 29from legal groups and solicitors, 31 responses from business, 25 on behalf ofadvisory and equality groups, and 30 from other interested parties andindividuals.11. Claimants and groups representing their interests came out strongly opposedto the principle of charging fees, and as a consequence many responsesdisagreed with both options presented in the consultation. These respondentsthought the fee proposals and the high level of fees proposed would deterclaimants from making claims and that it was unfair that claimants were beingasked to pay the majority of fees, particularly given the perceived financialinequality of employee versus employer. They also generally viewed fees asdiscriminatory.12. Business respondents generally supported both options with a tendencytowards Option 2 where they found the idea of a threshold and higher feeattractive. Some were keen that fees acted as a disincentive for claimants tobring weak and vexatious claims. They supported the fact that the claimantwould be required to pay the issue and hearing fees, as well as the proposalsfor limited refunds. They also broadly agreed with the proposals for multiplecases in both options.13. Little consensus could be found on the key issues across the groups, making itdifficult to state a clear preference for either of the options, howeverrespondents overall generally seemed to prefer a two stage fee, believing thatit offered a second opportunity to encourage parties to consider settlement.14. The majority of business responses were in favour of the threshold proposed inOption 2, but less than half of those responses considered that the Option 2proposals in general would prove to be an effective method for providing morecertainty to business over liability with almost two thirds of businessrespondents rejecting the Option 2 proposal overall. Other groups were almostunanimous in rejecting the Option 2 threshold, and were more stronglyopposed to the charging of a single fee at issue.15. Of the 6 “application specific”, fees, the fee for written reasons attracted themost criticism. All respondent groups (i.e. business, unions, claimants andlegal groups) expressed opposition on the grounds that written reasons are afundamental right of justice, that parties are entitled to know why they havewon or lost and should be seen as an existing part of the judicial decisionmakingprocess of the employment tribunal.16. The proposed HMCTS civil courts remission system was criticised by bothbusiness and claimant groups. Business thought it was too generous and didn’ttake into account savings or recent payments of lump sums to employees.7