Equal pay claims account for one-third of employment tribunal claims

Statistics released by the Tribunals Service for employment tribunal claims over the period from April 2007 to the end of March 2008 show that equal pay claims made up one-third of the claims accepted. 

Over the period, 189,303 claims were accepted, a rise from 132,577 the previous year. Of these, 62,706 included a claim under the equal pay jurisdiction. There were 55,712 working time claims, but the document states that this high figure is accounted for in part by around 10,000 claims from airline employees, which have been resubmitted on a number of occasions. Unfair dismissal - traditionally the most widely brought claim - has been pushed down into third position, with 40,941 claims under this jurisdiction. The number of age discrimination cases accepted increased from 972 in 2006/07 to 2,949 in 2007/08. 

The maximum compensation awarded in a case with an unfair dismissal jurisdiction was £76,536 (including a basic award element). The highest award in a disability discrimination case was £227,208. The equivalent was £131,466 for sex discrimination; £68,991 for race discrimination; £22,850 for sexual orientation discrimination; £12,124 for age discrimination; and £5,750 for religion or belief discrimination. 

Also

Employment tribunals figures update As we reported on the Employment Intelligence blog, the Employment Tribunals Service has indicated that the delay in producing the 2007/08 statistics was down to a "quality assurance issue", and the figures for 2008/09 should be produced "no later than the autumn". 

Freedom of information request for tribunal statistics The delay in production of the 2007/08 employment tribunal figures prompted a freedom of information request from XpertHR.