When an employee makes a successful claim for discrimination, the Employment Tribunal will then decide the appropriate level of compensation to award depending on the type of loss suffered. The President of the Employment Tribunals has recently confirmed that, as of 6 April 2018, where an employee has suffered injury to their feelings, compensation is to be revised upwards in line with inflation. This means that successful employees could expect to recover higher compensation in the future.
What is injury to feelings?
The Equality Act 2010, which makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the basis of any of nine protected characteristics, allows compensation to be awarded for both financial and non-financial losses arising from acts of discrimination. Therefore, even where the discrimination of an employee by their employer does not result in them suffering any financial loss, they can still be awarded compensation for the impact that the discrimination has had on their feelings.
Whilst there is no exact science to deciding the correct figure to award for injured feelings, in 2002 the Court of Appeal, in the case of Vento v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police (No 2) (Vento), established that compensation should be assessed by reference to the following three bands relating to the severity of discrimination:
The lower band:
“for less serious cases, such as where the act of discrimination is an isolated or one off occurrence“.
The middle band:
“serious cases, which do not merit an award in the highest band“.
The top band:
“the most serious cases, such as where there has been a lengthy campaign of discriminatory harassment on the ground of sex or race“.
Vento assigned each of these bands a financial range and there was further guidance given that only in “the most exceptional case” should an award for injury to feelings be higher than the top band.
What has changed?
When Vento was originally decided the lowest award in the lower band was set at £500 and the highest award in the top band was £25,000. However, much has changed since 2002 and there have been several ad hoc attempts to update the figures in the intervening years.
In September last year, guidance was issued by the President of the Employment Tribunals confirming that the value of the three bands would be adjusted to take account of inflation and that they would then be reviewed annually and adjusted (if necessary) each April.
The first of these annual reviews have now been carried out and it has been confirmed that from 6 April 2018 the value of the bands will be as follows:
The lower band:
£900 to £8,600
The middle band:
£8,600 to £25,700
The top band:
£25,700 to £42,900
What does this mean for employees?
The revised bands will provide clarity to employees bringing claims for discrimination as there will no longer need to be any consideration as to whether inflation should be applied, or at what rate. This will simplify things for those who may previously have struggled to quantify their non-financial losses. In addition, the annual reviews linked to inflation, are likely to result in awards to successful employees that more accurately reflect the injury to feelings they have suffered.
How Nelsons Can Help
Laura Evans is a specialist Employment Law Solicitor at Nelsons.
For further information contact our employment law specialists on 0800 0241 976 or contact us via the online form to find out how we can discuss your issue in more detail. We won’t charge you for discussing your initial enquiry over the phone and we also offer a fixed fee one hour appointment which is charged at £185 + VAT