T Wood (counsel) For the v M Peckham (solicitor) — 2024

The claimant was employed by Weller Media Agency Limited from 19 November 2020 as Global Design and Development Director and was dismissed on 5 June 2023. The respondent contended the dismissal was for redundancy arising from a business re-organisation, while the claimant contended that there was no redundancy situation and that the real reason was her written complaint of 19 April 2023 to the senior leadership team. The respondent confirmed in closing that it relied on redundancy alone and not on some other substantial reason.

Employment Judge Anderson found that the way the process was run cast doubt on the genuineness of the stated reason. The judge noted that the claimant was well regarded, that Ms Cinti was perturbed by the claimant's 19 April 2023 complaint, that the respondent had misled the claimant about the progress of her visa application, that information about required cost savings and departmental salaries was withheld during consultation, that a role paying almost the same as the claimant's was being recruited around the time of her dismissal without her being given the opportunity to apply, and that the respondent had pre-decided to rule out short-time working, lay-off and making junior design staff redundant before consultation began without telling the claimant.

On the balance of probabilities the tribunal concluded that redundancy was not the reason for the claimant's dismissal, and the claim of unfair dismissal was upheld. Because the reason was found not to be redundancy, the tribunal did not go on to make findings about the fairness of the process, and held that no Polkey deduction was appropriate. Remedy was reserved to a further hearing on 15 May 2024. A claim of breach of contract had been withdrawn before the hearing began.