The doubling of single claims made to the Employment Tribunal since the abolition of fees is due to "renewed demand for ET claims".

This conclusion was aired by Judge Brian Doyle, President of the Employment Tribunal, at the latest meeting of the Employment Tribunal National User Group. Any reinstated claims had already been included in older figures and so would not be double counted.

With 5 months of management information now available since the Unison decision, the President also said that it was clear that the 100% rise in claims was "stable and consistent", though he noted that to return to pre-2013 levels would require a 200% rise.

Given the increased in workload he has put forward a business case to allow for recruitment of additional fee-paid EJs and salaried EJs. Though the plan is waiting final approval, the President is "quietly optimistic" of a positive outcome. In the shorter term, the MoJ had been flexible over sitting days with refreshed opportunities for fee-paid Employment Judges to sit again with most fee-paid EJs re-committing to sit 30-70 days a year. The cap on the maximum annual sitting days for fee-paid judges has also been raised from 70 to 110 days.

The full minutes can be found on Gov.uk here.