The number of cases taken to employment tribunals increased by 17 per cent in the past year, and included a huge rise in sex discrimination complaints.

There were 115,042 applications in the year to March compared to 98,617 the previous year.

Sex discrimination cases increased by 76 per cent from 8,128 to 14,284, mainly due to more than 7,000 applications relating to a dispute over the dress code for workers in jobcentres.

A male employee won a case of discrimination after refusing to wear a tie, which sparked a number of other applications.

Other common complaints were about unfair dismissal, unauthorised deduction of wages and breach of contract.

Wednesday July 21, 2004