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Employment Tribunal (ET) delays are worsening year-on-year. In the first instalment of a two-part series on ET delays, we consider the development of the delays and the factors impacting them; along with some of the ways employees may be responding to the delays.

Current delays

Employers will be well aware of the ET backlogs, which have been increasing steadily since tribunal fees were declared unlawful in July 2017.

As considered in our previous article, this is not a new issue but it is a growing one.

According to the Ministry of Justice’s latest quarterly tribunal statistics for the period April 2026 – June 2026:

• New single claims are being brought at more than twice the rate they are being disposed of (14,000 received vs. 6,100 disposed of).
• The number of open single claims has increased by 51% compared to the same period a year ago and 9% from the previous quarter. The total number of open single claims in June 2026 was 70,000, the highest level in the Ministry of Justice’s timeseries.
• Total open claims (single and multiple) are now at over half a million (537,000); the ET disposed of only 10,000 of these in this 3-month period.

Acas has also reported a significant increase in demand for its services, handling more than 150,000 EC notifications in 2025/26 and experiencing a 27% increase in volume from 2024/2025.

Future delays

It’s possible that these delays will continue to worsen following the increase in time limits for bringing new ET claims to six months...

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