Miss K Baxter v Ranc Care Homes Limited — 2020

Miss K Baxter was employed by Ranc Care Homes Limited from 25 April 2010. She was promoted to Head Housekeeper in 2015 and then took on the Hotel Services Manager role in 2016, but no new job description was issued at that point. In October 2018 the Respondent carried out a company-wide review of job descriptions and proposed a revised Head Housekeeper role for her, paid at £9.50 per hour, which was her then current rate and £0.50 above the usual rate for that role.

The tribunal found that the review was not triggered by her individual performance. It accepted that some matters were discussed at the 26 October 2018 meeting, including concerns arising from Silver Sunday, but found the wider reason for the change was the general role review and the anomaly of her being the only Hotel Services Manager without a job description. The claimant signed the new job description at that meeting, and the tribunal held that she thereby agreed the change to her contractual role. It also found that any earlier complaint about the way the change had been handled was waived or affirmed when she signed the document and continued working.

After the meeting, the tribunal found the Respondent’s 5 November 2018 letter was confusing because it referred to the role not being met due to volume of work, which suggested broader performance issues that were not in fact being pursued. However, it found the later delay in responding to the claimant’s 11 November 2018 letter, and the muddled drafting of the 5 November letter, were not serious enough to amount to a breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. The claimant resigned on 25 November 2018, but there was no constructive dismissal and therefore no dismissal for the purposes of s.95(1)(c) Employment Rights Act 1996 or s.136(1)(c) Employment Rights Act 1996. Both the constructive dismissal claim and the statutory redundancy payment claim were dismissed, and the remedy hearing was cancelled.