Enforcing tribunal awards and costs orders 



Tribunals do not have power to enforce their awards or costs orders. If an employer refuses to pay, the claimant must launch separate county court enforcement proceedings. This has led to shockingly low levels of recovery for successful claimants. Ministry of Justice research into the enforcement of tribunal awards in England and Wales (May, 2009) showed that 39% of tribunal awards are not paid at all and that 8% are paid only in part. 



A new system of Penalty Enforcement was introduced in April 2016 to try to address this. A claimant whose tribunal award or Acas settlement has not been paid must complete a Penalty Enforcement Form available online from the Gov.uk website and send it to the ET Penalties Team at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. An enforcement officer will give the employer 28 days to pay, and will collect the award for the claimant. The employer will also be ordered to pay a penalty (50% of the award outstanding, with a minimum of £500 and maximum £5,000). The penalty halves if the award is paid in 14 days. This penalty goes to HM Treasury, not to the claimant.


By January 2017, £83,000 of fines had been collected under this regime, representing 60 penalty notices and 164 warning notices for failure to pay.