Unfair dismissal claims have shot up over the past year and are on track to overtake equal pay as the most frequently lodged claim, exclusive data obtained by Personnel Today’s sister publication XpertHR can reveal.
Ahead of official statistics confirming the number of claims accepted for 2008-9, expected later this year, data seen by XpertHR shows that the provisional number of unfair dismissal tribunal claims accepted from April 2008 to February 2009 has risen to 47,155, up from 40,941 the previous year.
Redundancy pay claims have increased steadily from 7,313 to 9,220, while claims for a failure to inform and consult about redundancy nearly doubled, from 4,480 to 7,382 -perhaps indicative of the current economic climate and a knock-on effect of the thousands of job cuts announced in the UK.
Equal pay claims remain high -at 42,416 -but this is down on the 62,706 equal pay claims accepted in the year ending March 2008.
Last week the Tribunals Service revealed that the total number of claims lodged in the year April 2007 to March 2008 had soared by 40%, to 189,300. The latest statistics obtained by XpertHR show that 131,365 claims were lodged betweenApril 2008 andFebruary 2009.
HR chiefs told Personnel Today they want to see cases independently assessed before they reach court to reduce the number of “frivolous” claims.
