Mrs Lorraine Lancaster v The Governing Body of Whitmore High School (1R) and 1 other — 2023

The claimant, a teacher and NASUWT representative at Whitmore High School, sent three emails in June and September 2020 about the reopening of the school during the Covid-19 pandemic. The tribunal held that those emails contained sufficient information to amount to protected disclosures under section 43B ERA 1996, applying the approach in Cavendish Munro and Kilraine. It found that the claimant believed the matters were in the public interest and that they tended to show a risk to health and safety, and it treated the 24 June 2020 email to the leader of the Vale of Glamorgan Council as a disclosure to the employer within section 43C ERA 1996.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant was subjected to a detriment when she was suspended from work on 19 October 2020. It also considered amended complaints that she had been subjected to detriment by being investigated under the disciplinary process for complaints from pupils B, C and D, and by an external investigation in relation to pupil E. It held that the investigations themselves were not detriments: the complaints and letters were genuine, it was reasonable for the school to investigate them, and the comparator cases relied on by the claimant did not show that she had been treated less favourably.

On causation, the tribunal found that Mr Robinson suspended the claimant because of the complaints and safeguarding concerns about her conduct towards pupils, parents and staff, including the concerns relating to pupil E, and not because she had made protected disclosures. It noted that the school and council engaged with and responded to the claimant's Covid-19 concerns, that similar concerns were raised by another trade union representative without any suspension, and that Dr Browne played no part in the suspension decision. The whistleblowing detriment complaint under sections 43B and 48 ERA 1996 was therefore dismissed.

The separate complaint brought under sections 47 and 48 ERA 1996 also failed. The tribunal held that section 47 gives protection only in the specific redundancy or TUPE representative context, and the claimant's case did not fall within that statutory scheme. The claimant had not sought loss of earnings and only claimed compensation for injury to feelings, but because both complaints were dismissed there was no award of compensation.