An article in the April/May edition of the Equal Opportunities Review 2014 [subscription required] highlights that within the statistics for the employment tribunal figures covering October to December 2013, which show that tribunal claims were down 79% overall compared with the comparable period in 2012, before tribunal fees were introduced, there was a substantial reduction year-on-year in the volume of all discrimination claims.

EOR’s analysis shows that quarterly figures for age discrimination claims received by tribunals were down 63%; disability discrimination claims down 58%; equal pay claims down 83%; race discrimination claims down 57%; religion or belief discrimination claims down 60%; sex discrimination claims down 77%; and sexual orientation claims down 75%. EOR point out, that looked at another way, taking these seven characteristics protected by the Equality Act 2010, in the period October to December 2012 there were 14,314 claims made to employment tribunals. By contrast, in the period October to December 2013, this fell to 3,668 claims. So discrimination claims are currently running at 25.6% of the volume before fees were introduced.

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