In person For the v Respondent — 2019

Dr Tsipouri was employed by Imperial College as a Senior Clinical Trials Manager from 3 January 2017 to 31 March 2018. Her comparator, Mr PB, was a Clinical Trials Manager in an equivalent level 4 role and had longer service with the respondent. The tribunal found that when she started she was on spine point 38 at £45,700, while Mr PB was on spine point 39 at £46,970, creating a differential of £1,270 per year for the period 3 January 2017 to 1 August 2017. It also found that the claimant had limited line management and leadership experience when appointed, which was why she was initially placed at the bottom of the band, and that she later received a non-automatic increment after probation.

On the equal pay claim, the tribunal held that the difference in pay was due to length of service and the operation of the incremental pay scale, not sex. It applied the Equality Act 2010 equal pay provisions and relied on the length-of-service reasoning in Danfoss and Cadman. It found that the claimant and Mr PB moved through the band by incremental progression, that the claimant was not employed on the 1 October 2016 increment date, and that parity was restored on 1 August 2017 when she received an increment after successfully completing probation. The equal pay claim was therefore dismissed.

The victimisation claim was also dismissed. The tribunal found that the claimant's complaints about unequal pay before 1 August 2017 were protected acts, but that after that date her complaints were about the level and fairness of her pay because the pay differential had ended. It rejected the allegation that Professor Brown criticised her at the probation meeting, found that the delays in holiday pay, pension, tax, national insurance and leaver processing were administrative and not linked to any protected act, and found no detriment in the document requests or DSAR issues. It also found that the removal of her name from protocol documents was decided by people who did not know of her protected acts.

The holiday pay claim had been said to be settled and was recorded in the judgment as dismissed upon withdrawal. The separate claim for failure to provide written particulars of employment failed because the claimant had been sent the wrong appendix by mistake, the tribunal could not identify a material difference in the notice and holiday terms, and even if there had been a difference it would have been a pure mistake such that any award would be unjust or inequitable. The tribunal further held that, in any event, the right to written particulars was not a jurisdiction that supported a section 38 Employment Act 2002 award because none of the other claims succeeded.