Ms S Crawshay-Williams of Counsel. For the v Respondent — 2021

Mr Bennett brought a single claim of unfair dismissal arising from a redundancy dismissal effective 3 March 2020. The tribunal accepted that there was a genuine redundancy situation and that the respondent ran a collective consultation process in late 2019. It found that the claimant was involved in that process, including as a local trade union representative, and that the blue book arrangements were varied by agreement for the purposes of this exercise.

The tribunal held that the scoring process was not unfair in principle, but that its execution was. It found that HR had departed from the agreed process by using a default score of 2 unless a scorer chose to depart from it, rather than requiring proper evidence to be identified for each criterion. The tribunal also found that the claimant was marked down on subjective matters without clear supporting evidence, including alleged staff complaints, the circumstances of his leaving the eleclink site, and an inaccurate understanding of his training record.

The tribunal further found that the respondent acted obstructively when dealing with the claimant's challenges to the scoring, and that the consultation became unproductive. It accepted that the claimant had an opportunity to make written points and that note taking at the meetings did not make the process unfair, but it held that simply failing to address the challenges properly was not consistent with a reasonable redundancy process. The tribunal also found that dismissing the claimant immediately without notice because he might be disruptive was unfair, although it concluded that the lost notice period would not probably have led to alternative employment.

By contrast, the tribunal rejected the claimant's complaints about the collective consultation process, the modification of the blue book, suitable alternative employment, the use of contract labour, and the handling of the appeal. On remedy, it applied the Polkey principles and assessed a 70% chance that a fair process would have made no difference to the outcome, so the claimant was entitled to 30% of his financial losses if not agreed. It made no adjustment for contributory conduct under section 122 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.