Mr N Saeed v United National Bank Ltd — 2019

The tribunal found that the claimant’s substantive Head of Branch Network role ceased when the respondent implemented the OTOT restructure. It accepted that the respondent had amalgamated the claimant’s role with operations and SQM work in response to adverse lending and deposit variances and the need for one reporting line, and held that this was a genuine redundancy situation under section 139(1) ERA 1996.

The tribunal held, however, that the dismissal was unfair under section 98(4) ERA 1996 because the selection process was predetermined. It found that senior managers had already concluded that the claimant was not suitable for the new Retail Services Manager role before the interviews took place, so although consultation, pooling and redeployment efforts were generally within the range of reasonable responses, the application of the selection criteria to the claimant was inherently unfair and conducted in bad faith.

On Polkey, the tribunal concluded that the claimant would still have been fairly dismissed on 11 May 2018 if the process had been fair. It found that the Retail Services Manager role was materially different from his substantive post, with greater emphasis on leadership, strategy and sales delivery, and that the claimant did not demonstrate the necessary attributes at interview, scoring 36 out of 70 against a minimum pass mark of 50. The tribunal also found that he did not contribute to his dismissal by failing to apply for the London Branch Services Manager role.

On remedy, the tribunal made no basic award because the claimant had already received a statutory redundancy payment of £4,826, and it made no compensatory award because it applied a 100% reduction on the basis that he would have been fairly dismissed at the same time in any event.