Ms J Rankine v Elite Fostering Limited and 2 others — 2020

Ms Rankine applied for interim relief in support of a claim that she had been dismissed for whistleblowing, relying on alleged protected disclosures said to have been made between January 2020 and the end of August 2020, including disclosures to the employer and, she said, to Ofsted. The tribunal summarised the background as including the Ofsted monitoring visit of 6 August 2020, concerns about the claimant’s ADM and QA roles, subsequent disagreement over whether she should relinquish the ADM role, grievance proceedings, pre-termination negotiations, and then an investigation and disciplinary process led by external consultants.

The tribunal set out the interim relief test under sections 128 and 129 ERA 1996 and the authorities it said governed the approach, including the need for the claimant to show a "pretty good chance of success" or a "potential winner" on the protected-disclosure dismissal case. It identified the elements for a section 103A claim as including a protected disclosure, reasonable belief, public interest, and causation, and noted that at this stage it was only making a summary assessment on documents and submissions, without oral evidence.

On the material before it, the tribunal found the pleaded case was not sufficiently particularised and the Scott Schedule did not contain enough detail to substantiate each alleged disclosure. It said there were numerous factual disputes about whether disclosures were made at all, whether they amounted to protected disclosures, and whether they were in the public interest, and it considered that some of the alleged disclosures may have been no more than bare allegations rather than information. It also noted the respondent’s case that dismissal followed an irretrievable breakdown in trust and confidence after the claimant’s conduct and complaints, and concluded that there was no clear evidence that the section 128 test was met. The interim relief application was therefore refused.