Mr M Bailey v Network Plus Services Limited — 2024

The tribunal found that Network Plus Services Limited was in a redundancy situation because income from Cadent had reduced and the business needed to reduce the number of Service Delivery Supervisors. It rejected the claimant's case that the whole redundancy exercise was a sham, but it did accept that the selection process was flawed. The first scoring exercise contained an error in the D8 performance criterion, and the tribunal found that the claimant should have had a better score on that criterion. It also found that the respondent did not explain the claimant's selection by reference to objective criteria, and that the consultation process was unfair because the claimant was not told the selection criteria before the consultation meeting.

On that basis, the complaint of ordinary unfair dismissal succeeded. The tribunal held that the reason for dismissal was redundancy, but that the respondent did not act reasonably in treating redundancy as a sufficient reason to dismiss the claimant. It deferred any Polkey and contributory conduct arguments to the remedy hearing listed for 10 July 2024, so no monetary award was determined in this judgment.

The automatic unfair dismissal complaint under section 100 ERA 1996 failed. Although the claimant was agreed to have been designated to carry out activities in connection with preventing or reducing health and safety risks, the tribunal was not satisfied that the reason or principal reason for dismissal, or for his selection for redundancy, was that designation or any such activities. It found the evidence pointed more towards the claimant's relationship with NLU and concerns about his site attendance, rather than protected health and safety activities, as the explanation for his selection.

The protective award complaint under sections 188 and 188A TULRCA 1992 succeeded. The tribunal found that, by the time the respondent informed employees of its proposal, it was proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees as redundant at one establishment, so the duty to consult was triggered. It also found there was no recognised trade union and no steps were taken to elect employee representatives or otherwise comply with the consultation requirements. The amount of any protective award was not determined at this liability hearing.