The government has now changed its mind on its earlier decision not to contact people due a refund after paying (now unlawful) employment tribunal fees.
The Justice Secretary, David Gauke, has stated that the refund scheme had been making ‘reasonable progress’ but that ‘further action was necessary’.
They will be now writing to everyone who paid an ET fee and who has not yet applied for a refund to raise awareness of the existence of the scheme and to provide details on how to apply. The first batch of 2,000 letters was issued on 9 April.
ET fees were introduced in July 2013 by then Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling, but considered unlawful following the decision of the Supreme Court in R (on the application of UNISON) v Lord Chancellor (to read more, please see our article regarding the decision).
The decision to write to those due a refund follows Dominic Raab, formerly of the Ministry of Justice’s comments in December 2017 that the government could not write to those due a refund as ‘often, people move home’. A somewhat thin pretence at a justifiable reason. The government had instead relied on information being displayed on ‘government channels’ and MPs were also told that they ‘could inform constituents’. Both measures seemed unlikely to restore the payments in good time or indeed at all to their rightful owners.
The government has not yet provided an update on exactly how many claimants have been refunded to date but as of December, the MoJ said 3,400 refund payments had been made, with a value of £2.8m. The total cost of the refund is expected to be around £33m.
If you would like any assistance with recovering tribunal fees or have a general employment law query you wish to discuss, please phone our Truro office on 01872 241414 to speak to our dedicated employment law team.