Employment tribunal decisions online database now live

This article was produced by Olswang LLP, which joined with CMS on 1 May 2017.

HM Courts and Tribunals Service announced in June 2016 that it intended to introduce an online database of employment tribunal decisions. Originally scheduled to be available in Autumn 2016, after some delay the tool is now live and can be accessed using the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions

Employment tribunal judgments and written reasons were previously available in a publicly available register, however until now the register for England and Wales could only be searched and accessed by personally attending the employment tribunal judgment register office at Bury St Edmunds.

The announcement in June 2016 stated that the new database would only include new employment tribunal judgments with a decision to be taken at a later date in relation to judgments made prior to the introduction of the online service. However, the live database does include some judgments dating back to 2015 and 2016.

The database includes a search function allowing the user to search for specific words or phrases, and there are also options to search by jurisdiction code, e.g. "Age discrimination" or "Breach of Contract", and to search by date range.

The practical effect of this online database is that employment tribunal judgments will be readily available to a wide audience which will include not only the parties and their representatives, but also the media, other businesses, employees and job applicants.