In person For the v Respondent — 2021

The Tribunal dismissed Ms Woolley's complaints of disability discrimination against NPS Barnsley Ltd. It accepted that she had a disability within s.6 Equality Act 2010 by reason of anxiety and depression at the relevant times, but found that her evidence was unreliable in a number of respects and preferred the Respondent's account on the material disputes. The Tribunal found that the Respondent's actions after her sickness absence were largely explained by workload, support arrangements, and the changing needs of the business rather than by disability.

On the direct discrimination complaint, the Tribunal found that Mr Pemberton was not a materially comparable comparator because he was an experienced fixed-term Bid Writer, not a Bid Manager. It accepted that the Claimant's bid strategy, bid writing, marketing and networking responsibilities were not taken away from her. The only specific change to her role that was actually made clear to her was the removal of the bid report spreadsheet task, which the Tribunal found was done to reduce her workload and because the Trainee Estimator could carry it out effectively. The Tribunal also found that the Claimant was removed from the leadership/management course on 29 July 2019, but that this was because Ms Temple considered the course, which required 20% of working time, inappropriate while the Claimant was dealing with work-related stress and asking to work reduced hours.

The Tribunal further found that the decision to put the Claimant at risk of redundancy and dismiss her was driven by the Respondent's view that a skilled technical Bid Writer was needed in place of a Bid Manager, following the work done with Mr Pemberton and the changing business strategy. It accepted that the Bid Manager and Bid Writer roles were fundamentally different and that the Claimant's mental health and four-week sickness absence played no part in the redundancy decision or in the decision not to invite her to apply for the Bid Writer role. For the discrimination arising from disability complaint, the Tribunal held that the Respondent did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, that the Claimant had a long-term disability until late October or early November 2019, when her consultation response referred to her underlying condition and past experience. Even then, the Tribunal found that the redundancy decision was not because of disability-related absence, and the claim failed.