Ms S Gedling v Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust — 2024

Ms Gedling was a UNISON trade union representative and deputy Branch Secretary employed as a Band 4 Bladder and Bowel Assistant Practitioner in the Kent Continence Service. The tribunal accepted that UNISON was recognised by the respondent and that the claimant was an official of a recognised trade union. The claim concerned refused or alleged refused time off for a UNISON health conference on 17-19 April 2023 and for an event or training on 26 April 2023.

For the 17-19 April 2023 health conference, the tribunal found that attendance did not fall within section 168 TULRCA. Although the recognition agreement referred to attendance at national or regional meetings or conferences relating to health policy, the tribunal found that this provision was concerned with health policy relating to agreed consultation or negotiation machinery, not health policy conferences generally. The tribunal also found that the conference agenda was principally about motions on matters including pay, recruitment, campaigning against privatisation and pensions, and that only a very limited number of sessions could fall within the time off provisions in the recognition agreement. There was no evidence that attendance was for the purpose of carrying out the claimant's duties as a UNISON official within TULRCA or the recognition agreement.

For 26 April 2023, the tribunal found that the evidence about the event was unclear. The claimant described it at different points as legal training on discrimination, Chairs training, and a UNISON event. On the contemporaneous documents, the tribunal found it was an unspecified UNISON event and did not fall within section 168(2)(a) or (b). The tribunal also found that the claimant had not asked for, and therefore had not been refused, time off for 26 April other than apparently seeking annual leave.

The tribunal did not need to determine section 170 separately because it found that this basis had been expressly or implicitly abandoned by the claimant's solicitor's email of 19 December 2023. In any event, considering the claimant's role in an at-risk service, the amount of paid union time already allowed, additional time for employee relations matters and job matching, the effect on Band 6 and Band 7 specialist nursing staff covering her work, and the ACAS Code of Practice, the tribunal found that the respondent had not failed to permit reasonable time off under either section 168 or section 170. The claim failed and was dismissed. No monetary award was made.