Judicial mediators fail

Law Society Gazette 22 April

The Ministry of Justice pilot scheme for a judicial mediation service for employment tribunal discrimination cases in Newcastle, Central London, and Birmingham has failed to achieve the anticipated time and cost savings over unmediated cases and a study has concluded that judicial mediation was ‘an expensive process to administer’ and that the costs were not offset by the estimated direct or indirect benefits. It recommended that the service should not be rolled out in its present form. It had no discernible statistically significant effect on the number of cases settled or resolved without a formal hearing and, far from reducing the costs actually increased the net costs to the parties of £880 a case.