Power to make recommendations

As well as a power to award compensation, tribunals can make recommendations to avoid future discrimination. Past recommendations have included diversity training, monitoring and analysis of recruitment decisions, revising policies and ending discriminatory practices, circulating a tribunal judgment widely, and engaging an external HR professional to review procedures. In Governing Body of St Andrews Catholic School v Blundell [2009] UKEAT/0330/09, the tribunal required the employer to write to parents putting the record straight about a victimised teacher’s performance.

Failure to follow a recommendation will be taken into account by the tribunal in any future discrimination case, and can lead to an increase in compensation.

The EA 10 originally included a power to make wider recommendations to benefit not just the claimant but also other workers (section 124, EA 10). Despite widespread opposition, this power was repealed on 1 October 2015 (section 2, Deregulation Act 2015) on the basis that it was a “burden on business”. There are no plans to reinstate this power.