In person For the v Respondent — 2019

Ms Z Thomas brought claims of constructive unfair dismissal, race discrimination, pregnancy/maternity discrimination, victimisation and failure to provide itemised pay statements against ACAS. The tribunal found that she had a long employment history with periods of temporary promotion and maternity leave, and that her role was affected by a 2017 restructure while she was on maternity leave.

The tribunal accepted that communications and grievance handling were not well managed, including the informal 1 August 2017 Starbucks meeting, delays in the grievance process, and the need for clearer management of the claimant's return to work. It also found that the claimant was given notice of the restructure by emails in March and August 2017, was sent the Grade 8 job information in advance, and was encouraged to apply for the new role. The CIPD conference booking problem was treated as an oversight, and the approval of Ms Cate Rees's CIPD training was viewed as favouritism rather than race or maternity discrimination.

In relation to the 2017 restructure and grievance, the tribunal found that the claimant had been warned by March 2017 that changes were being considered, and that the later grievance appeal partly upheld only the point that the 1 August meeting should not have been held so informally and that keeping in touch was unstructured and lacking. It accepted that the grievance process took too long, but it also found that the claimant's own comparator Ms Alvarez, who was of a different racial group and not on maternity leave, had a grievance of similar length, which supported the conclusion that the delay was not because of race or maternity.

The constructive unfair dismissal claim failed because the matters relied on, individually or cumulatively, did not amount to a repudiatory breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. The tribunal also dismissed the race, pregnancy/maternity and victimisation claims: the historic temporary-promotion complaints were very substantially out of time, the direct pregnancy discrimination claim was excluded by section 18(7) Equality Act 2010, and the remaining allegations were not proved to be because of race, maternity, or protected acts.

The only successful complaint was failure to provide itemised pay statements. The tribunal found that April, May, July and August 2018 payslips were not provided at or before payment because of problems with the new payroll/self-service system, made a declaration under section 12 ERA 1996, and recorded that the April 2018 pay adjustment was recovery of an overpayment rather than an unlawful deduction from wages. No monetary award was fixed in this judgment.