Employment Tribunals Service: Fines

(asked on 14th January 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the Answer of 11 January 2017 to Question 58968 on Employment Tribunals Service: Fines, how many (a) warning notices and (b) financial penalty notices have been issued to respondent employers to date under section 150 of the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 for failure to pay an employment tribunal award; how many of those financial penalties (i) have been paid and (ii) remain unpaid; how many previously unpaid awards have been recovered by his Department following (A) the issuing of a warning notice only and (B) the issuing of both a warning notice and a financial penalty notice; and how much money was recovered in each category.


Answered by
Kelly Tolhurst Portrait
Kelly Tolhurst
This question was answered on 21st January 2020

Under this government a total of £2,566,414.19 in previously unpaid awards has been secured for workers since April 2016. £1,343,941.96 has been recovered as a result of only issuing a warning letter. A further £1,222,472.23 has been recovered as a result of issuing both a warning letter and a penalty notice. The Employment Tribunals penalty regime promotes and secures prompt payment of unpaid employment tribunal awards and Acas settlements.

The penalty regime for failure to pay employment tribunal awards started in April 2016. Since then 2,067 warning letters and 1,302 penalty notices have been issued.

Of the 2,067 warning letters that have been issued:

  • 157 are being pursued through a debt collection agency;
  • 459 have been pursued through a debt collection agency but the penalty has not been recovered;
  • 509 were withdrawn because the employment tribunal award was paid;
  • 647 are not enforceable due to liquidation and/or insolvency;
  • 258 are currently within the payment period; and
  • 37 financial penalties have been paid.
Reticulating Splines