Case 2407636/2023 · Employment Tribunal

Unison & others (see attached schedule) v Orchard Day Nursery (Liverpool) Limited (in creditors voluntary liquidation) and 1 other — 2024

Case reference: 2407636/2023
Decision date: 16 July 2024
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge Franey

Indexed: 18 May 2026

Parties

3 named

Claimant

Unison & others (see attached schedule)

Respondents

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

The judgment was issued under Rule 21. Unison's complaint for a protective award was well-founded because Orchard Day Nursery (Liverpool) Limited failed in its duty to consult the individual claimants and their former colleagues under section 188 TULRCA 1992. The tribunal ordered the first respondent to pay each employee in the recognised description remuneration for a 90-day protected period starting on 30 March 2023, with recoupment regulations applying to those payments.

The individual claimants' own protective award complaints were dismissed because they did not have standing to bring such claims. Their unfair dismissal complaints were upheld: the tribunal found that the reason for each dismissal was that the claimant had taken part in the activities of an independent trade union at an appropriate time, making each dismissal unfair under section 152(1) TULRCA 1992.

Each individual claimant was awarded a basic award of £6,959 for unfair dismissal, with no compensatory award. The remaining money complaints were dismissed upon withdrawal after the claimants received payments from the Insolvency Service.

Claims and outcomes

4 findings recorded

This case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Other	Unison's complaint for a protective award under section 189 Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 was well-founded; the award was remuneration for a protected period of 90 days starting on 30 March 2023, but no fixed monetary total was stated.	Upheld	—	—
Other	The individual claimants' complaints seeking a protective award were dismissed because individual employees did not have standing to bring such a claim.	Dismissed	—	—
Unfair dismissal	The tribunal found each dismissal unfair under section 152(1) TULRCA 1992 because the reason for dismissal was participation in the activities of an independent trade union at an appropriate time. The £6,959 basic award was ordered for each claimant; no compensatory awards were made.	Upheld	—	£6,959
Other	The remaining money complaints against the first respondent were dismissed upon withdrawal after the claimants received payments from the Insolvency Service. The precise types of money claims are not identified in the judgment text.	Withdrawn	—	—

Legal tests applied

4 references

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

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