Our CEO, Claire Sandbrook, writes on her findings on the enforcement of tribunal awards made by Shergroup Enforcement in today’s blog.
“I was delighted to see today that we recovered 4/5 Awards which were returned to the Ministry of Justice in our quarterly statistics. In fact, the figure would have been 5/5 except that one of the Awards, Enforcement of Employment Tribunal Awards, employment solicitor, Employment Appeal Tribunal award was issued against a company that didn’t actually exist so we couldn’t follow through on the enforcement.
Payment of Tribunal Awards
The awards totalled £13,701.59 and we recovered £12,165.54 for the Judgment Creditors. I am pleased about this because over the years, having given court users a fast track to Enforcement of Arbitration Awards through the High Court system, there have been plenty of mutterings about whether this was a good move. It does annoy me that Government or commentators on enforcement always want to knock a good idea without looking at the data.
So our results this quarter are the real data that the Government has actually had every quarter but you never hear anything about. It’s as if all the figures get sucked into Petty France but nobody then wants to publicly talk about them. Certainly, that’s how it seems with the MOJ and the performance of High Court Enforcement, County Court Enforcement. And of course, it’s a pity because this is the sort of data the Government should be highlighting instead of how many sheets of paper it has saved in its digital transformation project!
When talking about enforcement it is always important to discuss the data – and make progress on developing data to support the enforcement function. For the civil enforcement, figures Government should be compiling data both for county court bailiffs, sheriffs, court officers and HCEOs. Frankly, the Government could and should be doing more”.
Awards for unfair dismissal | What can a tribunal award you if you win?
Once the tribunal decides you have been unfairly dismissed, you will get compensation which is made up of a basic award, a fixed sum if you’re claiming unfair dismissal, a compensatory award, which is to compensate you for the original money you have lost as a result of losing your job.
Employment tribunal awards for disability discrimination
Unlike in unfair dismissal, there is no cover on the amount of compensation a tribunal can award for disability discrimination. Compensation includes an award for injury to feelings and an award to take into account any loss suffered, for example, loss of wages or pension.
Employment Tribunal Awards 2020: Employment Tribunal Awards Statistics
The Ministry of Justice has announced its annual employment tribunal award statistics for 2019/2020.
Last year the employment tribunal statistics have been reported as the first full year where no employment tribunal fees had been paid. As a result, the number of claims made had grown. This year i.e., April 2019 to March 2020 (was largely, but not completely, unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown) – we see a decrease in the number of claims made year on year for the first time since the scrapping of tribunal fees. What is more, the decrease is fairly significant.
From the year 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 a total of 103,984 employment tribunal applications were produced. This compares to 121,111 the previous year and 109,685 in 2017/18.
The number of awards of compensation has also dropped from 774 in 2018/19 to 740 in 2019/20. As usual, this is a very small proportion of the overall number of cases boosted.
The aspect of the statistics performs for an interesting study. The highest sum granted in the period 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020 was £265,719 and was given in a disability discrimination claim. This was closely followed by an award of £243,636 for an age discrimination claim. For example, the highest award made in 2018/19 was £947,585 (awarded in an unfair dismissal case).
The highest award in an unlawful dismissal claim this year was £118,842. This is considerably lower than last year’s highest award, which means the unfair dismissal award has not improved significantly, increasing slightly from £6,243 to £6,646. The survey is much the same for most of the other claims, with the level of median awards prevailing fairly steady.
The exception to that is sexual orientation discrimination, religion and belief discrimination and sex discrimination awards. No grants were made in sexual orientation claims in 2018/19 whereas 5 were made this year with a median of £9,245. Religious discrimination encountered the opposite – last year 3 awards were given with a median award of £1,500 whereas this year no awards have been made.
Awards in sex discrimination cases stand out as having the most important change in phases of both median and average awards. Sex discrimination also saw a notable increase in the highest award made. The median award has more than doubled from £6,498 in 2018/19 to £14,073 in 2019/20 and the average award has increased from £8,774 to £17,420. In 2018/19 the highest award for a sex discrimination claim was £24,103, in 2019/20 it was £73,619.
The corresponding increase in the number of claims where awards were made compared to other claim jurisdictions is also significantly higher in sex discrimination cases – 19 awards of compensation were made in 2018/19 compared to 46 awards of compensation in 2019/20. This could be a coincidence but it could also be linked to the developing views of the community caused by the #MeToo movement.
The number of costs awards given by employment tribunals in 2019/20 has fallen to 177. This follows the trend from 2018/19 where the number of awards dropped to 209, having previously remained static at 479 for the leading two years. Once again more cost awards were made to employers rather than claimants with the figures being 130 and 47 respectively.
The maximum costs award declined significantly this year, declining from £329,386 in 2018/19 to £103,486 this year. The median costs award nevertheless stayed somewhat static, growing slightly to £2,500 compared to £2,400 in 2018/19.
