Mr. S Baker v Engineering Services (Bridgend) Limited — 2021

Mr S Baker worked for Engineering Services (Bridgend) Limited from 7 February 2018 to 14 August 2020 as a Fitter/Welder. The tribunal accepted that the business was affected by the pandemic, that work reduced, and that the respondent decided in July 2020 that cost cuts required four redundancies. A scoring exercise was carried out on 10 July 2020 across workshop staff, and the claimant was one of the four lowest scorers and was dismissed for redundancy on 17 July 2020.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's case that he was dismissed because he had refused work while furloughed, had worked elsewhere, used the works van, or had previously been disciplined. It found the reason for dismissal was redundancy and that there was a genuine reduction in the requirement for employees to carry out work of that kind. The selection pool and criteria were within the range of reasonable responses, and the scoring exercise was carried out independently by senior staff.

The dismissal was nevertheless procedurally unfair because, although staff had been warned about possible redundancies, there was no individual consultation with the claimant, no opportunity to comment on the pool or scoring, and no appeal. On remedy, the tribunal applied Polkey and found the claimant would have been dismissed in any event if a fair process had been followed. It therefore held that no basic award would be made because a redundancy payment had already been paid, and limited any compensatory award to three weeks' pay, but it did not quantify the final award in this judgment and directed a separate remedy hearing.