Employment Lawyers Want Reforms to the Employment Tribunal System

11 days ago Andrew Berk asked a question on LinkedIn (Employment Lawyers Networking & Referral Group):

"What reform(s) to the Employment Tribunal System Would You recommend?"

Lawyers responded with the following suggestions and concerns:

• increase to £75,000 the power of the tribunals to deal with contractual claims
• do ETs have the expertise to deal with the range of issues that one sees across the employment/commercial contract sphere?
• there are too many cases brought which have no reasonable prospect of success; a more robust approach to awarding costs would help address this , especially where a party has made reasonable attempts to settle and the other party has refused, been obstructive or delayed entering into negotaitions. The cap on. costs which can be made by a Tribunal without having costs assessed , should be removed
• There ought to be an equivalent Part 36 jurisdiction in ET proceedings.
• I would like to see the tribunal's jurisdiction extended to cover freestanding bullying and harassment outside of discrimination.
• It's controversial, but how about this - a Claimant who is dismissed for alleged poor performance or misconduct and whose dismissal letter and references record that,should be able to go to an ET and if successful, get those documents expunged from their record with a "Tribunal ordered" document or record to replace them.
• My experience of Judicial mediation has been very positive but all too often one party will not agree to using it only to settle at a later stage - unreasonable refusal should also have some sort of penalty ?
• To introduce a more robust costs regime (and I include a Part 36 type procedure as part and parcel of that) would only serve to increase costs for both parties. It inevitably carries the danger of detailed assessment by either an Employment Judge (and they are busy enough already) or by a District Judge with little or no knowledge of the complexities of an Employment case. The tools are there, the ET just needs to be willing to use them.
• Surely, there should be some sort of Pre-Hearing Review mechanism (without the stigma) for each case (although it may not be administratively workable) so that each case is reviewed at an earlier stage so that any possible issues i.e. limitation/jurisdiction, poor merits etc are dealt with and claims and responses without any reasonable prospect of success are thrown out.
• In my view the current rules are fine, they're just not used effectively by the Tribunals. I agree completely about the failure to punish those parties who do not comply with Orders.

So there we have it. In a matter of a few days we see different views from various practitioners. This debate itself shows the difficulties that face the architects of new legislation on how the tribunal system should function for the better. The lack of consensus is to be encouraged, for it demonstrates the varied creativity of the professionals in this arena. To get the best ideas, you need to start with lots of ideas (ref. Thomas Edison).

Let's have more views, please.