The Ministry of Justice has released its quarterly report on tribunal statistics covering July to September 2025.
The latest report highlighted that 26,000 employment tribunal (ET) receipts were received by ETs — 46% (12,000) of which were single claims receipts, with the remaining 54% (14,000) being multiple claims, within 630 lead multiple cases.
The total number of open claims (which covers both single and multiple claims) at the end of the quarter passed half a million, sitting at 515,000.
Additionally, the number of open ET cases sat at 52,000 at the end of September — this is an increase of 33% on the same time last year, as receipts exceeded disposals over the last year.
Unfair dismissal claims made up 23.7% of new cases in the period, topping the list with 4766 claims. This was followed by disability discrimination and unauthorised deduction of wages claims at 14.8% and 12.2% respectively.
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Due to changes in reporting, we are unable to compare specific claims against the same period of 2024, however against the previous reported quarter, public interest disclosure claims saw an increase of 16.07%, along with disability discrimination claims which were up by 10.3%.
Discrimination claims overall saw an increase, making up around 35.4% of total claims, increasing by around 5.7% on the previous quarter.
It is clear that the pressure on the tribunal system is higher than it has ever been before and this is expected to accelerate now the Employment Rights Act 2025 has received Royal Assent. The Government estimates that millions more people will gain the right to bring unfair dismissal claims when the qualifying period for bringing an ordinary unfair dismissal claim reduces from the current two years’ service to six months’ service.
