10 June: Update on FRU response to the Coronavirus

Referring cases

  • We are accepting new employment and social security tribunal cases in line with our usual criteria.
  • FRU is operating remotely; we are supervising volunteers by telephone and email, and this is more time consuming and resource intensive. Therefore our capacity is lower and we want to ensure that the cases and clients we take on will be suitable for this type of environment. If you are considering making a referral please bear in mind that clients will need to be communicated with remotely.
  • All case referrals must be made electronically because we cannot guarantee that our post can be monitored on a regular basis.
  • If you are a potential client of the employment self-referral scheme please check the appropriate page on this website to make sure that your case qualifies and then call us on 020 7611 9555 or email admin@thefru.org.uk.

Volunteering

  • Current volunteers - we are working with a small number of volunteers on current cases. Please don't contact the office at the moment to ask about taking on a case, we will be in touch when we are ready to extend the number of cases that we can manage.
  • If you are a potential FRU volunteer, we will be running remote training days in July. For further information please register your interest at this link http://www.thefru.org.uk/volunteers/attending-the-training-days and you will be sent further details once we are able to open bookings.
  • There will be a delay in when new volunteers will be able to take on FRU cases because the tribunals are not currently operating as normal. We will build up our caseload as the situation develops.

We will keep the situation under review and post further updates on this news page and on our social media pages (@FreeRepUnit and https://www.linkedin.com/in/free-representation-unit-fru-0b569352/).