Well the date has now passed and we are several weeks into the new process for the Employment Tribunals service in England/Wales/Scotland.
http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/tribunals/employment/et-fees-factsheet.pdf
This is from the Ministry of Justice and is the official leaflet in pdf form in respect of the rules, charges etc.
If you have any questions about how this affects you either as a individual or as a business, please let us know in the comments or contact us for further info.
As you can see from this, although charges are introduced, if a Claimant wins, they can ask the Judge to put their costs onto the Respondent.
What hasn’t been said, but looks true, is that if you don’t put the cheque in the post (as it were) then, instead of outright rejecting your claim, it has been stated that the Employment Tribunal will write to the Claimant and give them a further 30 days to pay.
If the claim has no merit, and the Claimant hasn’t put the fee in, the initial thought was that it would be rejected, but it seems now as though a further 30 days will be allowed.
Of course, the Respondent only has 28 days to respond to an ET claim against them, so they will have to put their response in, costing the Respondent time and money, before the claim could be thrown out for non payment.
Result for the Claimant methinks.
Just my opinions of course and not legal advice.