“There is no such thing in life as normal”, sang my erstwhile hero Morrissey on his 2006 song ‘The youngest was the most loved’. But on this, as on so many things, Morrissey was wrong. Because, under the justice-denying fees regime introduced in 2013, the number of employment tribunal claims/cases became very normal.

Month after month, for more than four years, the number of new claims/cases hardly varied at all. And, following the abolition of fees last July, the number of new claims/cases appeared to have settled at a new normal, with little variation in claim/case numbers in the four months September to December 2017.

However, the latest set of quarterly statistics, published by the Ministry of Injustice this morning, suggests that we may not yet have reached the new normal. Here’s some charts to show what I mean. Make of them what you will.

Or, if you prefer your statistics quarterly:

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