Mr C Cornwell v Beyond Reflections Heard remotely by CVP — 2023

Mr C Cornwell was employed by Beyond Reflections as Social Media and Marketing Officer from 1 June 2020 until his dismissal by letter dated 25 October 2022. He had raised an informal complaint in June 2022, been the subject of a conduct review and action plan, taken sick leave from July to September 2022, and was then suspended on 21 September 2022. The trustees later concluded that his conduct had fallen short of the standard expected in a professional workplace but did not amount to misconduct.

The tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that, by October 2022, the charity's funding position was precarious and the board decided to reduce staff costs. It found that the work of the Social Media and Marketing Officer had ceased or diminished, that the role was genuinely redundant, and that the claimant was selected because he occupied that role. It rejected the suggestion that redundancy was a sham and accepted that the later reduction in staff numbers supported the genuineness of the redundancy situation.

The tribunal nevertheless found the dismissal unfair because the respondent did not warn or consult the claimant before dismissing him and did not explain that failure. It applied the redundancy fairness approach under section 98(4) ERA 1996 and the consultation principles in Polkey v AE Dayton Services Ltd. Although the claimant had not intended to stay in the job and the tribunal found the dismissal would likely have been delayed only by about two weeks if a fair procedure had been followed, the absence of any pre-dismissal process meant the complaint of unfair dismissal succeeded.

On remedy, the tribunal said the claimant had already been paid a redundancy payment of £304, which it treated as equivalent to a basic award, so no further basic award was made. It awarded £320 for the loss caused by the failure to follow a fair procedure and £320 for loss of statutory rights, making a total compensatory award of £640. It did not award future loss of earnings and did not make any reduction for the claimant's failure to appeal because the dismissal was a redundancy dismissal.