Forward planning is important, but the courts are forced to take this to extremes. We know of criminal trials listed for 2029, and now the employment tribunal is the latest to be scheduling into the middle distance, or 2028 at least.

Obiter does not yet have a 2028 diary; like a fool we stick with a 2026 planner. Perhaps a reminder on the phone will suffice.

Of course, the employment tribunal’s travails are not new. It takes time to reach 515,000 open matters, covering single and multiple claims (as things stood at the end of Q2 2025/26).

To put the 2028 date into perspective, let us talk more numbers. We have time. Latest figures show that there were 52,000 single claim open cases between July and September 2025. In that same period, the employment tribunal received 12,000 single claim receipts and disposed of 5,900 single claim cases.

Looked at that way, 2028 seems almost reasonable. A sorry state of affairs, all told. We’re all advised not to hold onto stress, but the court backlog and years of waiting for a hearing mean litigants and parties have no choice in the matter.

 

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