Suffocated by Tribunals

Britain has built a parallel justice system that operates less as an escape valve for the courts and more as an industrialised grievance machine, a new Centre for Policy Studies paper argues.

‘Suffocated by Tribunals’, written by Alan Hibben and Robert Colvile, shows how misaligned incentives, overly broad legislation and the expanding reach of human rights law have created a system where the rational response for employers and public bodies is to settle, regardless of whether a claim has merit.

Judges themselves repeatedly describe proceedings before them as pointless or disproportionate. The paper highlights several ludicrous examples, such as a service charge dispute reduced by just £400 after costs running to many multiples of that sum; a taxpayer awarded £1 in costs after a full hearing; and 30 years of complaints and FOI litigation over a personal grievance, at no cost to the requester at any stage.

The SEND appeals are perhaps the starkest example. Cases have risen from around 3,500 a year in 2015/16 to nearly 24,000 in 2024/25. Councils contest them and lose almost every time, spending tens of millions of pounds on litigation rather than provision.

Then there are pay claims: under the ‘equal value’ doctrine, tribunals assess job worth through a bizarre points system with little reference to what the market will pay. Supercharged by no win, no fee litigation, this has already cost Birmingham and Glasgow approximately £1.3 billion each and is now working through every major retailer.

The report proposes six solutions, including modest means-tested fees for lodging tribunal complaints; a default costs rule for parties who push on past a clear warning; a proportionality gate to prevent processes exceeding the sum in dispute; and separating SEND diagnosis from automatic statutory entitlement.