In Person For the v Respondent — 2019

Mr Adrian Mudge brought an equal pay claim against the Ministry of Defence, relying on Mrs Christina Dandy as his comparator. Both worked as Senior Craft Station Engineers at RNAS Culdrose and were rated as equivalent under the respondent's job evaluation system. The tribunal found that the claimant was promoted to Skill Zone 3 on 1 March 2013, while Mrs Dandy had entered the same grade on 26 April 2011, and that the comparator had been placed at a higher point because of the way the 2011 and 2012 pay arrangements operated.

The tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the claimant's initial salary in 2013 was corrected to the Craft Entry Point for SZ3, with backpay, and that Mrs Dandy's higher pay reflected her earlier entry into the grade and subsequent progression to spinal point 10. It found that the continuing differences in pay, which varied between £519 and £597 per year, were explained by those historic and structural pay factors rather than by the claimant's sex. The tribunal also recorded that after the correction both employees received the same annual increases, apart from the 2017 quartile change which gave Mrs Dandy a lower increase.

Applying sections 65, 66 and 69 of the Equality Act 2010 and the authorities it cited, including Strathclyde Regional Council v Wallace, Glasgow City Council v Marshall, and Kings College London v Clark, the tribunal held that the respondent had established a genuine material factor defence. It found no evidence that the claimant had been treated less favourably on the grounds of sex, noted that the claimant did not pursue indirect sex discrimination, and dismissed the complaint. No monetary award was made.