The first EEOS Annual Report has been published. It covers the period from October 2023, when the Prevention of Discrimination Ordinance (PODO) came into effect, until December 2024.

Looking at a breakdown of the number of discrimination cases the EEOS handled (as a percentage of the total cases) disability discrimination was the leading protected ground during 2024. This was expected and in-step with comparable jurisdictions. However, disability discrimination accounted for less than 10% of EEOS cases that year.

The report provides some comfort to critics of the legislation stating:

“Overall the number of advisory cases relating to discrimination matters has not been overwhelming. This is significant because at the time of the States of Guernsey’s debate on the implementation of PODO there had been significant concerns raised through the media and various interest groups that this legislation would open the floodgates to complaints and leave employers and businesses exposed to significant risks of many frivolous or vexatious litigation.

In particular there were concerns that opportunistic individuals might seek to take advantage of Guernsey’s wide definition of disability at the considerable expense of both employers and businesses. It is perhaps too early to say definitively that these concerns have not been, or will not be, realised on the scale that was anticipated. However it would have been logical to expect that if it was to happen then we would have recorded considerably more advisory cases during the first 12 months of the legislation being in place, which as the data shows, has not materialised.”

One of the new requirements set out under PODO was that before an Applicant can lodge a formal Tribunal complaint, they must first notify EEOS of their intention to make a complaint. They do this by completing an Intent to Complain Form called the “ITC1”.

An ITC1 form can be used to notify the EEOS of a single potential category of complaint, or it can be used to list multiple potential categories of complaints. Additionally a single Applicant may submit more than 1 ITC1 Form.

The categories of complaints (also referred to as “heads of claim”) which can be made to the Tribunal are as follows:

• Unfair dismissal (including constructive unfair dismissal)
• Failure to pay the minimum wage (and other minimum wage related complaints)
• Failure to provide written reasons for dismissal
• Sex Discrimination (employment only)
• Multi ground discrimination (race, sexual orientation, disability, carer status and religion or belief)
• Victimisation
• Harassment
• Detrimental treatment under the Employment Protection (Sunday Shop Workers) (Guernsey) Law

Overall across all 89 ITC1s submitted, there were 155 different heads of claims.  A breakdown of these can be seen in the graph below.

71 unfair dismissal claims were made with it remaining the top reason for a claim.  Disability was the most cited head of claim under PODO with 27 cases notified to the EEOS.

During the Reporting Period there were 37 formal complaints lodged with the Tribunal. The introduction of PODO has not led to significantly increased levels of case work for the Tribunal. All of these cases relate to the field of employment, there were no formal complaints relating to any other context such as for goods and services.

The majority of formal complaints are related to unfair dismissal (35 out of 37) although 16 of these complaints also included discrimination based on one of the new protected grounds under PODO.  Only 1 case related solely to discrimination for a new protected ground.

To read the full report click on the button below.