- IN PERSON FOR THE v Sol Attendance Limited — 2021

The respondent did not enter a response or attend the hearing. The tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence that sums remained outstanding for unpaid salary/expenses, unpaid holiday pay, unpaid pension contributions, and university tuition fees which the respondent was contractually obliged to pay. It declined to award interest on those outstanding sums because it found it had no jurisdiction to do so at that stage.

The claimant had less than two years' continuous service, so the tribunal considered automatic unfair dismissal based on public interest disclosures rather than ordinary unfair dismissal. It found that the claimant had made protected disclosures about matters including the withholding and non-payment of salaries, failures concerning pension contributions, cancellation of liability insurance, and disclosures to the CQC and Pensions Regulator. It found she suffered detriments in consequence of those disclosures, and that the matters amounted to fundamental breaches of contract entitling her to resign. The automatic unfair dismissal and public interest disclosure detriment claims were upheld.

The tribunal awarded £2,999 as the compensatory award for unfair dismissal and £10,000 for injury to feelings for public interest disclosure detriment, describing the latter as towards the lower end of the middle Vento band. The victimisation claim was dismissed because the claimant had not brought a discrimination claim based on a protected characteristic, and the conversation relied on did not amount to a protected act under s27 Equality Act 2010.