Representing himself FOR THE v Mrs Woodmark, solicitor — 2017

The tribunal found that the claimant, a Senior Developer and Support Analyst, was dismissed for redundancy on 29 July 2016 and that the respondent was facing wider headcount reductions driven by reduced workload and cost cutting. It accepted that the claimant’s work was on .net-based products, while the respondent’s core revenue and benefits products were Oracle-based, and found that the .net development work and the associated support work for eBenefits and eRevenues had diminished and was expected to diminish further as those products were replaced.

On that basis, the tribunal held that there was a genuine redundancy situation within s.139 ERA 1996 and that the claimant’s role was in a distinct pool of two UK-based .net developers, which the respondent was entitled to use. It rejected the claimant’s case that his job had simply been advertised again after his dismissal, and found that the Oracle and .net roles were different kinds of work. It also found that the selection criteria issue did not arise because there were two employees in the pool and two redundancies to be made.

The claim succeeded because the dismissal was not fair under s.98(4) ERA 1996. The tribunal found that the consultation was not meaningful: although Mr Blackmore held consultation calls and circulated vacancy lists, neither Mr Finnerty nor Ms Jones responded to the claimant’s points on 6 July 2016 about retraining and redeployment into new technology areas. The tribunal found that the respondent had decided the dismissal was effectively a foregone conclusion and had not properly considered the claimant’s views.

The tribunal also found that the respondent did not take reasonable steps to seek suitable alternative employment. It noted that the respondent had circulated weekly vacancies and had redeployed some other at-risk staff, but held that it had not made a sufficient effort to identify the claimant’s skills or assess redeployment opportunities. Remedy was left for a separate hearing, which the tribunal listed for a half day and said would also consider any costs applications and reimbursement of tribunal fees.