In person For the v Respondent — 2022

The Claimant complained that the First Respondent had failed to enrol him into a workplace pension and had deducted pension contributions from pay without paying them into a scheme. He learned of the position only after leaving employment, when he received correspondence from the Workers Pension Trust in May 2022. He then wrote to the First Respondent on 16 May 2022, to the Pensions Regulator on 19 May 2022, and again to the Pensions Regulator on 19 June 2022. The tribunal treated the claim as one for post-termination detriment whistleblowing under section 47B ERA 1996.

The tribunal held that the 16 May 2022 email and the later complaints to the Pensions Regulator were qualifying disclosures. Applying the public interest requirement in section 43B ERA 1996 and the guidance in Chesterton Global Ltd v Nurmohamed, it found that the Claimant had a genuine and reasonable belief that the matter was in the public interest, even though it was primarily a personal dispute. The tribunal also noted that protected disclosures can found a section 47B claim after termination, referring to Onyango v Adrian Berkeley T/A Berkeley Solicitors.

The claim nevertheless failed on detriment. The tribunal accepted that the First Respondent’s response was inadequate and that the letter of 15/16 June 2022 did not answer all of the Claimant’s questions, but it found that this was not caused by the making of protected disclosures. The tribunal concluded that the Respondent had already been slow to rectify the pension issue before the disclosures were made, and that the inadequacy and delay in responding predated the whistleblowing. It also found no evidence that the 19 June 2022 complaint to the Pensions Regulator caused any further detriment.

The tribunal therefore dismissed the whistleblowing detriment claim. It did not determine the separate jurisdiction issue concerning the individual respondents, because the substantive claim failed in any event. No remedy was awarded.