Mrs M Balderstone v St Ann’s Hospice — 2020

Applying s.139 ERA 1996 and the Williams v Compair Maxam Ltd guidance, the tribunal found that St Ann's Hospice had a genuine redundancy situation after the introduction of EMIS and the review of its clinical administration function. The claimant's role at the Neil Cliffe Centre was one of the posts placed at risk, and the tribunal accepted that the respondent no longer required the same amount of medical secretarial work at that site, although some secretarial work remained.

The unfair dismissal claim succeeded because consultation and warning were found to be inadequate. The tribunal held that the proposals were already well advanced by 18 September 2017, so consultation did not begin at a formative stage, the timetable was unreasonably short, and the first consultation meeting did not provide meaningful answers to the claimant's central questions. It did not accept that the claimant was told there was no leeway for alternative proposals, and it found that the respondent did offer opportunities to apply for alternative roles and other vacancies, which the claimant chose not to pursue. The tribunal also found that the dismissal was not because of performance and that age played no part in the redundancy selection or dismissal.

On age discrimination, the tribunal found that the only in-time complaint was the dismissal itself, and that complaint was not well founded. The earlier alleged age-related acts, including comments said to have been made in 2015, 2016 and 2017 and the performance-management complaints, were outside the three-month time limit in s.123 Equality Act 2010, and the tribunal refused to extend time because the delay was long and unexplained and the evidence had lost cogency. In remedy, the claimant had already received a redundancy payment and was not entitled to a basic award; the tribunal proposed a compensatory award equivalent to four weeks' pay under Polkey, but the amount was not quantified and the parties were invited to agree it.