Power to make recommendations 


As well as a power to award compensation, tribunals can make recommendations on how an employer should avoid discriminating again in the future. 


Recommendations have included diversity training, monitoring and analysis of recruitment decisions, reviewing policies and ending discriminatory practices, circulating a tribunal judgment widely and engaging an external HR professional to review procedures (Lycee Francais Charles de Gaulle v Delambre [2011] UKEAT/0563/10/RN). 


In Governing Body of St Andrews Catholic School v Blundell [2009] UKEAT/0330/09, the tribunal required the employer to write to all 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 against the employer 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 the wider workforce (section 124, EA 10). Despite widespread opposition, this power was repealed from 1 October 2015 (section 2, Deregulation Act 2015) as a “burden on business.” As a result, recommendations can now only be made if they will benefit the claimant. This means that they will only be made if the claimant stays in their job after the discrimination claim. In practice, few victims of discrimination who take cases to the employment tribunal remain with their employer. This repeal has substantially diluted the power of the “recommendations” remedy to eliminate discriminatory practices at work.