Mr M Khan v Home Office — 2025

The claimant, a Senior Executive Officer employed by the Home Office, complained of indirect race discrimination arising from not being appointed to a Grade 7 role after being placed on a reserve list from a brigaded campaign. The tribunal accepted that the respondent was seeking to improve diversity at senior levels, while also noting concerns about limited data collection and senior managers' awareness of diversity objectives.

For the first PCP, the tribunal found there was a common practice of moving existing Grade 7 staff laterally for experience, whether described as managed moves or talent moves. However, it held that this practice moved vacancies around the organisation and did not establish a group disadvantage for British Asian employees or a disadvantage to the claimant because of race. The indirect discrimination complaint based on that PCP therefore failed.

For the second PCP, the tribunal found no practice of recruiting to Grade 7 TCA roles without advertisement using a pool of existing TCA holders. It found TCA roles were advertised at the first appointment stage, and two examples of extensions without re-advertisement were insufficient to establish a PCP. For the third PCP, the tribunal found no practice of using temporary recruitment to avoid the Grade 7 reserve list; the examples relied on were generally found to be legitimately temporary and often specialist roles. One exception involving Paul Fraser and one potential example involving Mr Knott were insufficient to establish the alleged practice. The tribunal also found PCP1 was in time, PCP2 was out of time with no just and equitable extension, and only limited parts of PCP3 would have been in time.