Stefan Cross, the solicitor behind the rise of no-win no-fee equal-pay claims clogging the tribunal system, said yesterday that the cases against local authorities were the beginning of a deluge. The former care home worker estimates that there are 50,000 claims currently waiting to be heard at tribunal with just 25 independent experts working on them.

“Progress is very slow. Ironically, the only people benefiting are the flat-fee lawyers who charge by the hour,” he said, adding that the system was unsustainable.

Mr Cross, 46, left a law firm working on behalf of trades unions in 2002 when he decided that women were never going to improve their pay unless they made individual claims, rather than relying on collective bargaining. He agreed with Jenny Watson, chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission, that private companies were just as vulnerable to legal action as public-sector employers.

“Everyone is covered by the same legislation. The private sector is not as gender-segregated as the public sector, but where you have a large number of staff doing similar things, there is the prospect of many cases being brought,” he said.

“But I think that large manufacturing companies, where you have large groups of people doing similar things, may be vulnerable.”

Women directors could also prove fertile ground for pay claims, according to data published last week which found big disparities. The study of 42,000 managers found women were beating men to the top jobs, reaching manager level on average five years before their male colleagues, but were still being paid less and receiving smaller bonuses.

On average, a female manager was paid £43,571 last year, £6,000 less than her male counterpart, according to the Chartered Management Institute.

Mr Cross said that companies had been well served by the culture of secrecy surrounding pay which makes it difficult for women to find out if they are being discriminated against, but it was questionable whether that could last. However, he doubted that pay audits were the answer. “Companies will find what they want to find – and don’t forget that all the local authorities that have had these claims brought against them had all done pay reviews and audits,” he said.

His firm, Stefan Cross Solicitors, has brought 30,000 cases since he brought his first action in 2003, and Mr Cross believes 100,000 women have benefited from the “ripple effect”, either by bringing a case elsewhere or by their employer upping their pay. His company dominates the arena and he estimates cases brought by other firms add up to just five per cent of the total.

He now plans to shift focus from local authorities to the health service.

“Agenda for Change, the big NHS pay plan, failed to end pay discrimination and continued to protect the earnings of male union members at the expense of women. It is a far bigger problem than local authorities.”

“The NHS side of things has yet to really get going. They take much longer and the process is much slower, but there will be many of them. Education, higher education in particular, is also vulnerable and they know it. All the same issues are present there between cleaning and clerical staff on one hand and maintenance staff on the other. It is the classic cook versus painter problem.”

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