Tribunal statistics for October to December 2014 have now been published by the Ministry of Justice, which indicate that although there continues to be fewer claims, there has been a small increase in the number of claims in the last quarter. Statistics have also been released concerning fee remissions for the first time.

The number of single claims received in the period October to December 2014 was over 4,000, which is 12% fewer than in the same period of 2013.  This is however slightly up from the quarter before that.

Of the complaints dealt with at hearing by the Tribunal in the quarter, 89% were associated with working time (partly due to multiple holiday pay claims). The number of unfair dismissal disposals increased by 80% in comparison to the same quarter in 2013.

Turning to the statistics on fee remissions released for the first time,  these covered the year to 30 September 2014. During that period, over 11,000 remission applications were made for the issue fee but only 1/3 were successful applications.  Over 2,000 applications were made for the hearing fee and of those, only approximately two thirds of hearing fee remission applications were successful.