The backlog has significant implications for the Employment Rights Bill, which the House of Lords has returned to the Commons for further consideration. 

The bill would extend legal protection from unfair dismissal to the first day of employment, giving millions more employees the right to submit a claim.

Analysis by legal expenses insurer ARAG shows that the employment tribunal system is disposing of more cases, but that the increasing number of claims is outstripping capacity, resulting in a rapidly growing backlog.

As a consequence, hundreds of thousands of workers and tens of thousands of businesses are left in limbo, sometimes for years, waiting for their employment dispute to be resolved.

Commenting on the latest data, ARAG’s Andy Talbot, director of broker, ATE & marketing, said: “A year ago, we warned that the government’s new Employment Rights Bill was incompatible with the failing employment tribunal system. The situation now is so much worse.

“There is a moral argument that the fairness and legality of an employee’s dismissal should not depend on their length of service, but reform is meaningless with a tribunal system as broken as this.

“Delays in our justice system act as brakes on the economy. Smaller businesses are reluctant to hire new staff and invest in growth with employment and other claims hanging over them.

“It seems sensible to stagger or delay the introduction of the day-one right to claim unfair dismissal. There’s little point in granting workers a right from the first day of their employment that it might take years for them to exercise.”

The data published by HMCTS this week show that the ‘Employment Tribunal Open Caseload’ stood at 61,163 cases, at the end of September. The total in September 2024 was 48,465. This follows an increase of more than 20 per cent the previous year.

The total number of cases includes both single claims and multiple claims (claims involving multiple claimants) so the number of employees waiting for their case to come before a tribunal will be hundreds of thousands.

The total number of ‘Employment Tribunal Disposals’ over the preceding 12 months was 35,271, an increase of 11.75 per cent on the same period a year earlier. However, the number of ‘Employment Tribunal Receipts’ in the 12 months to September was 48,400 against 40,523, representing an increase of almost 20 per cent.