Mrs J Michie v DL Insurance Group plc — 2021

Mrs J Michie worked for DL Insurance Group PLC in FarmWeb from 4 July 2004 until her employment ended on 13 January 2019. The respondent said her dismissal was by reason of redundancy. The tribunal accepted that the dismissal was caused by a genuine redundancy situation: the Head of FarmWeb, Chris Hurst, had decided that a significant part of the sales co-ordinator role could be redistributed to Development Underwriters and other members of staff, and that the claimant's role had diminished over time as bank leads fell away.

The tribunal heard detailed evidence about the claimant's duties, including meeting organisation, reporting, broker support, website maintenance, marketing materials, agency records and related administration. It accepted that Mr Hurst had made a genuine attempt to understand the role and had identified that the business could make better use of resources by reallocating responsibilities. The tribunal rejected the submission that the redundancy was not genuine and found that the reason for dismissal was redundancy.

On procedure, the tribunal found that there was a meeting on 11 September 2019 at which the claimant was told her role was at risk of redundancy and was given the reasons for that risk. It found that there was a consultation, that the claimant was told about the rationale orally, and that a pool of one was not unfair in the circumstances because she was the only sales co-ordinator in FarmWeb. It also found that the respondent considered suitable alternative employment, including redeployment opportunities in Bristol or Birmingham, but the claimant did not wish to pursue those options.

The tribunal found that some alleged meetings in September 2019 did not take place, including meetings said to have occurred on 18 September and 30 September 2019, but it did not treat those discrepancies as making the overall process unfair. It concluded that the grievance and appeal handling by Ms Stock was fair, although capable of improvement, and that the claimant's dismissal for redundancy was fair. The claim for unfair dismissal was therefore dismissed, and no monetary award was made.