Miss L Edwards v Virgin Media Limited — 2022

The claimant was employed as a Digital Producer and was dismissed following a proposed reorganisation in which the respondent planned to move from AEM to a headless content management system using Strapi and Angular. The tribunal found that the requirements of the business for Digital Producers uploading content using AEM were expected to diminish, and that the claimant's dismissal was wholly or mainly attributable to that expected diminution. It accepted the respondent's explanation that an external advert for a mobile phone AEM content producer had been placed in error and did not show an ongoing requirement for the claimant's role.

The tribunal found that employees were warned and consulted, that there was collective consultation and two individual consultation meetings with the claimant, and that Digital Producers could apply for Content Manager roles. The claimant did not apply for a Content Manager role, but successfully applied for a Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Partner role with a higher basic salary, which she declined. The tribunal also found that the respondent considered the claimant's grievance letters and consultation notes before deciding to dismiss her.

The claimant argued that she had been refused a four-week trial period in the DE&I Partner role, but the tribunal found on the balance of probabilities that she had not been refused such a trial. Taking account of all the circumstances, including the respondent's size and administrative resources, the tribunal concluded that treating redundancy as a sufficient reason for dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses. The unfair dismissal claim therefore failed.