Claimant v Respondent — 2026

All 20 Claimants had worked at Bishop Challoner School, which operated from one site and dismissed more than 20 employees as redundant when it closed on 4 July 2025. Because there were no employee representatives and no recognised trade union, the Tribunal held that the Claimants could bring complaints about non-compliance with section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

Staff other than Ms A Ropkins were told on 11 June 2025 that the decision to close had been taken, and a Staff Q&A issued on 16 June stated that no specific consultation would occur. The Tribunal found that some information had been disclosed but that there had been no consultation about avoiding dismissals, reducing their number, or mitigating their consequences, including after the Second Respondent was reminded of its obligations. Applying the protective-award authorities, the Tribunal made an award for each Claimant covering 80 days from 4 July to 22 September 2025. The Recoupment Regulations apply.

Ms Ropkins was deemed disabled because she had breast cancer. While she was absent for cancer treatment, the Second Respondent did not inform her of the closure or send her the closure letter issued to other staff. The Tribunal accepted her unchallenged factual evidence and held that this was unfavourable treatment because of something arising in consequence of disability, contrary to section 15 Equality Act 2010. It awarded £17,500 for injury to feelings within the applicable middle Vento band; no financial loss was claimed, and no aggravated damages were awarded.

The Tribunal did not uphold Ms Ropkins' reasonable-adjustments complaints. It treated the absence-management practice as substantively the same as the contractual sick-pay practice and, applying Bray, the EHRC Employment Code and O'Hanlon, was not satisfied that extending her contractual sick pay was a reasonable adjustment in the circumstances. The proposed adjustment to communication practices was not considered further because it concerned the same injury as the successful section 15 complaints, while the operative judgment records no breach of the reasonable-adjustments duty.

The Tribunal upheld the unfair-dismissal complaints of Ms Ropkins, Mr A Peck, Mrs A M Sweet, Ms S Scicluna-Chapman and Mr C Coultart because the required individual consultation or redundancy procedure had not occurred. The operative awards were respectively £313.08, £4,977.87, £300, £300 and £31,833.35, totalling £37,724.30. In assessing compensation, the Tribunal accounted for sums covering the same periods, mitigation through new employment, loss of statutory rights and, for Mr Coultart, salary and defined-contribution pension losses together with grossing up.

The Second Respondent also breached the contracts of Claimants 1–8 and 11–20 by failing to pay accrued Leave Pay for the eight-week school summer holiday, with operative awards totalling £109,227.60; Ms Ropkins received £0 because her pay entitlement was nil during long-term sickness absence. Wrongful-dismissal complaints succeeded for Claimants 1–6, 8 and 11–20, producing aggregate damages of £33,171.92; some successful complaints attracted £0 because no uncompensated loss remained. Mrs V Bastin withdrew her wrongful-dismissal complaint, and Mr Coultart withdrew his statutory redundancy-payment complaint. The judgment did not quantify the 80-day protective awards or state a single overall award total.