Vento Band Increases

As well as the changes to National Minimum Wage and statutory pay rates, April is also the month the Vento bands increase.?

As well as the increases this month to the National Minimum Wage and other statutory rates, there has also been the 2023 annual update to the Vento guidelines, which give compensation to injury to feelings in discrimination cases.

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What are Vento Bands?

Vento bands are the guides used in injury to feelings cases to decide how much a person will be awarded.

There are 3 bands for awards which reflect on the seriousness of the discriminatory act.

The guidelines were first set out in the 2002 case of Vento v Chief Constable of West Yorkshire [2002] EWCA Civ 1871 (case link in comments below).

In successful claims under the Equality Act 2010, an Employment Tribunal (ET) can award damages to employees for injury to feelings for acts found to arise from one of the 9 protected grounds of discrimination (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation) such as:

·???????An employee being humiliated by their employer.

·???????An employee receiving degrading treatment.

Injury to feeling awards are entirely discretionary and are made at some level in most successful discrimination claims. They are awarded to reflect the injury to feelings suffered by a worker, rather than set as a punishment to the employer but in practice they will act as both. Damages awarded for injury to feelings are additional to compensation for financial loss.

What factors will be considered by the Tribunal to make an award?

When deciding whether to make an injury to feelings award, an ET will consider all of the relevant facts of the claim, which include:

·???????The vulnerability of the worker/claimant;

·???????The seriousness of the treatment they have been subjected to;

·???????What impact the treatment has had on them;

·???????Any medical condition that the worker suffers from;

·???????The degree of upset or stress caused to the worker;

·???????The employment role of the person who has committed the prohibited act; and

·???????How the grievance made by the employee has been handled by the employer.

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As of the 6th April 2023 the bands were updated to:

-??????????￡1,100 to ￡11,200 for less serious cases?

-??????????￡11,200 to ￡33,700 for cases that do not merit an award in the upper band?

-??????????￡33,700 to ￡56,200 for the most serious cases with the most exceptional cases capable of exceeding ￡56,200.