Mr N Corck v ABF The Soldiers’ Charity — 2021

The claimant, Mr N Corck, brought a claim of unfair dismissal arising from his dismissal by ABF The Soldiers’ Charity. The tribunal found there had been a reorganisation of the respondent’s regions and that the claimant’s Executive Assistant role in Chatham was part of that process. It rejected the claimant’s case that he had been given a binding assurance in 2014 that he could remain in post until retirement, finding no such statement was made in the way he understood it.

The tribunal found there had been a misunderstanding between Mr Bacon and the claimant about whether the claimant had agreed to move to the expanded full-time EA role. It accepted that the respondent’s consultation was not ideal and that, at one stage, the claimant was presented with a fait accompli, but it also found there were meetings on 26 March, 9 April, 16 April and 20 May 2019 at which the claimant was able to put forward his views and proposals. The tribunal found the respondent had kept dialogue open and had offered what the claimant later said he wanted, namely a pattern involving three days in Chatham, one day at home and one day out on the road, but the claimant did not accept it.

On the redundancy issue, the tribunal accepted the claimant’s evidence that his workload had been falling and found that the respondent’s view that the four-day EA role was redundant at that time was incorrect because the requirements for that work had not ceased or diminished at that point. However, it found that the role later became redundant when the claimant left and was not replaced. Applying section 98(4) ERA 1996 and the range of reasonable responses approach, the tribunal concluded that the respondent acted reasonably overall in treating redundancy as a sufficient reason for dismissal. The dismissal was therefore fair and the claim was dismissed.