Mr G Scott v Change Grow Live Heard by CVP 10 and 11 May 2022 — 2022

The claimant, Mr G Scott, brought a complaint of direct age discrimination against Change Grow Live arising from performance management in the Hull alcohol team. The tribunal found that there had been repeated concerns about his caseload management from June 2020 onward, reflected in supervision meetings, emails and manager intervention, and that Mr Luke Ingamells had repeatedly tried to help him bring his caseload to a manageable level before any formal process was started.

The tribunal found that the claimant was placed on a support and action plan in April 2021 only after earlier informal management and HR advice had not resolved the performance concerns. It found that the SAP was introduced when the caseload had been reduced to a manageable level, was extended from six to eight weeks to give the claimant more time to succeed, and was accompanied by weekly reviews and a list of outstanding actions. The tribunal rejected the allegation that he had been set impossible targets, finding that no evidence supported that complaint and that he had in fact achieved some of the targets during the initial period of the plan.

At the end of the extended SAP on 24 June 2021, the tribunal found that the claimant had not completed the outstanding actions and had not improved sufficiently to meet the respondent's capability policy, so the decision was made to refer him to the formal capability process. The tribunal accepted that two younger colleagues, H and S, had also been placed on SAPs by the same manager, and noted that H successfully completed hers while S received further adjustments because of dyslexia. On the facts found, the tribunal held that the claimant had not proved that any of the treatment was because of age, and it dismissed the direct age discrimination claim. Because no unlawful discrimination was proved, justification did not need to be considered.