The annual Tribunal Statistics for the year 2011–12 have now been published. With regard to the Employment Tribunal [ ET], there seems to be a general downward trend. For example 186,300 new claims were received by the ET, which compared to the previous 12 month period showed a fall of 15%. However there were significant differences between the reduction of the number of single and multiple claims made – whilst just 2% less single claims were made, there were 19% less multiple ET claims received.

The number of actual disposals of cases by the ET also dropped during 2011 -12. N30,000 cases were finally disposed of, 10% less than the previous year. However, the ET seems to be successfully continuing their attempts to slowly tackle the claims backlog – the number of single claims remaining unresolved by the ET dropped by 7%, a continuation of the trend which began back in 2009.

Of the number of employment tribunal claims actually received, 31% were for unfair dismissal, redundancy or breach of contract, with a further 16% accounted for by deductions in wages claims.

Interestingly, of 230,000 individual complaints that were disposed of during the year, just 12% were successful at the tribunal hearing – far fewer than the 27% of withdrawn and 33% that resulted in a successful ACAS conciliation – though of course it remains to be seen whether these claims were withdrawn as the result of the settlement, and with the ACAS conciliating claims were successfully resolved in favour of the claimant or not.