Tribunals’ Annual Report – 2016

“The administrative justice and tribunals system has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years”, states the Senior President of Tribunals, Sir Ernest Ryder in his first annual report.
He goes onto say, that “some things have not changed and nor should they”.
He further states that he has gained much in his first five months in this role and from conversations with Tribunal Judges, members and users across the United Kingdom. One of the commitments he has made is to be a “listening Senior President”.
All sounding very positive and upbeat, here are just a few relevant items noted from his report:-

  1. Last year was the 50th anniversary of the establishment of employment tribunals
  2. Employment Tribunals lost a number of salaried employment judges through retirement, but there were no new judges to replace them, leading to a reduction in judicial numbers.
  3. The number of EAT appeals last year was about 45% of those pre-July 2013.
  4. A drop in the last six years from 60% of EAT litigants being professionally represented, to just 40% being professionally represented.
  5. It also points out various options arising from devolution of the Scottish employment tribunal system.

Sir Ryder concludes by stating that “ahead of us lies a challenging but exciting period of much change in the way in which justice is provided to our users”. He states that the “tribunals are for users, not the other way around”.