Charity funds are being wasted because the UK’s employment tribunal system is expensive and encourages false claims, according to the HR director of homelessness charity Broadway.

Writing in The Times, Helen Giles (pictured) says small businesses and charities are “groaning under the burden of complying with employment law that encourages employees to misrepresent themselves as victims of bullying and discrimination whenever their poor performance or behaviour is tackled”.

She reveals that the HR directors of “a high-profile national charity and a well-known international one” told her that no matter how much effort they put into managing staff, some will still put in a claim as “they know it’s likely to be lucrative”.

She adds that for the amount it cost one housing association to successfully fight a case, it could have built three new homes.

There were more than a quarter of a million employment tribunal cases filed in the 2009/10 financial year, an increase of 56 per cent.