In Person and Mr Jonathan Twycross, Son For the v Respondent — 2019

The claimant, Mr John Twycross, had been employed by the respondent and its predecessor since 26 October 2015 and transferred to Pacalis Construction Ltd in January 2017. The tribunal found that after a February 2018 statement of employment and a series of meetings about the claimant's role, GDPR-related tasks and the job description, the claimant raised a grievance and appeal, both of which were not upheld. The claimant then contended that the later redundancy process was a sham and that the dismissal was really because he had brought the grievance.

The tribunal rejected that case. It found that the respondent had identified a genuine redundancy situation arising from reduced need for employees to carry out work of a particular kind and overlap between roles. It accepted that the respondent carried out consultation, used a scoring matrix, considered redeployment, and that the appeal was handled by an independent HR consultant, Jessica Bull, who dismissed the appeal. The tribunal held that the grievance did not play any part in the dismissal and that the dismissal reason was redundancy.

The claimant's monetary claims also failed. On expenses, the tribunal held that there was no valid entitlement to continue claiming telephone rental after termination, because the employment ended when notice expired and the appeal did not prolong employment. On holiday pay, the tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the holiday year ran from April to March, and did not accept the claimant's case that it ran from January to December because he had produced no corroboration from earlier years. No monetary award was made.