§ Malcolm BruceTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many cases against his Department, the agencies for which it is responsible and its predecessor organisations have been brought to employment tribunals in each year since 1997 in relation to(a) equal pay, (b) sex discrimination, (c) race discrimination, (d) disability discrimination and (e) unfair dismissal; how many cost awards were made against (i) respondents and (ii) applicants; and how much has been spent (A) settling and (B) contesting claims. [181469]
§ Maria EagleThe available information is in the tables.
151W
Table B—legal services provided to DWP by Government Solicitors 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 Number of cases Disability discrimination — — — 42 Race discrimination — — — 26 Sex discrimination — — — 32 Unfair dismissal — — — 63 Other — — — 33 Total number of cases 109 81 104 196 Counsel fees 162,315 104,193 267,303 247,603 Two sets of figures are provided above due to the merger in 2002 of the Employment Service with the Benefits Agency to form Jobcentre Plus, a business unit of the Department for Work and Pensions. Prior to the merger, legal services on employment law matters were provided to the Employment Service by a private firm of solicitors—who remain the legal service provider for Jobcentre Plus. These figures are provided in Table A.
Table B represents the employment law statistics for cases conducted by departmental solicitors, who dealt with all employment litigation cases on behalf of the former BA, CSA, Pensions Service and DCS and other DWP agencies. Where the table is incomplete, information is not readily available and it would involve disproportionate cost to the Department to collate these figures. In particular, information on the costs of settling cases was not collected by the Department, nor was information collated, prior to 2003, on the specific types of case against the Department.