Employment Tribunals can deal only with matters specifically assigned to them by or under statute. Until 12th July 1994 (the date of coming into force of the above orders) this meant they had no jurisdiction to deal with Common Law claims (such as claims for breach of contract) even though the claim arose in an employment context (see Employment tribunals/jurisdiction of ).

Such claims had to be brought in the county court or High Court. The same facts might give rise to, for example, both an Unfair Dismissal claim (Tribunal) and a Wrongful Dismissal claim (County Court/High Court). The employee would have to bring two separate sets of proceedings to enforce his rights in full, at best wasteful and at worst unjust (see comments by the Court of Appeal in Delaney v Staples HL 1992 ICR 483, HL noted under Pay in lieu of notice .

This anomaly has been substantially removed by the above orders which give Employment Tribunals additional jurisdiction. Subject to restrictions, they can now deal with a common law claim (called a contract claim) arising from breach of an employment contract.

The most important restrictions are:

1. a £25,000 ceiling on the amount a Tribunal may award in respect of a "contract claim". There is no obvious reason for this £25,000 limit nor for the fact that it has not been increased although other limits have (see eg Compensation/2011 limit increases ).

2. that personal injury claims, claims relating to restrictive covenants , patents or copyright etc or to accommodation provided by employer cannot normally be dealt with by Tribunals - they must still go to the Courts.

3. the breach of contract jurisdiction is restricted to claims arising or outstanding on the termination of employment. It is not available during the subsistence of the contract.

There has been a steady increase in the number of wrongful dismissal claims being brought before employment tribunals since they have been given jurisdction to hear them (see notes at Employment tribunals/annual report/current ).