Mrs S Rose v Exeter Leukemia Fund — 2022

The claimant was employed as Community Support Service Manager and was responsible for the respondent charity’s @Home service. The tribunal found that the respondent faced serious financial difficulty during the COVID-19 pandemic, that its income had fallen, and that the need for work of that kind had ceased or diminished. On that basis, it held that there was a redundancy situation within section 139 ERA 1996 and that the principal reason for dismissal was redundancy, not a breakdown in trust and confidence or bad faith.

The tribunal accepted that the redundancy process was not perfect and identified several mistakes. It found that Samantha Peacock should have been placed at risk earlier, that Shaun Cooper’s 28 February 2021 email was badly timed and inappropriately worded, and that there was a delay before the consultation restarted in June 2021. It also found, however, that those defects did not make the overall process unfair in the circumstances of a very small charity run by volunteer trustees with external HR support.

On consultation and alternative employment, the tribunal found that the respondent held six consultation meetings in total and did properly consider the claimant’s concerns. It rejected the claimant’s case that she had been given a binding offer and had accepted either the proposed Service Manager role or the proposed Operations Manager role; those roles had not been finalised or come into existence as legally certain offers. It further found that the later Charity Manager role was properly considered as potential suitable alternative employment, that a competency-based interview was a reasonable selection method, and that the claimant’s refusal to attend meant the role was offered to the other candidate. The tribunal also found that the retail assistant role was too remote from the claimant’s senior management role to make the omission to offer it unfair.

Overall, the tribunal concluded that the respondent’s consultation, selection and alternative employment steps were within the range of reasonable responses and that the dismissal was fair. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed, and no monetary remedy was awarded because the case was decided on liability only and the claimant failed on the merits.