(1) Mr A. Blondell (2) Mr F. Katamba v Newham College of Further Education — 2019

Mr Blondell and Mr Katamba were Learning Mentors at Newham College. The tribunal found the College was reviewing staffing and, to make savings, proposed deleting the Learning Mentor posts and moving some work to the Curriculum team; the consultation paper identified total savings of £338,288, of which £161,201 came from deleting the six Learning Mentor posts. After consultation the College created Pastoral Worker roles, later made full-time, and both claimants declined to apply or engage with redeployment; their employment ended on 31 August 2018.

On whistleblowing, the tribunal accepted that both claimants made some disclosures about registers, and in Mr Katamba's case also student searches and safeguarding concerns, but it rejected or time-barred many other pleaded disclosures. It found Mr Ansell and the College did not react adversely when concerns were raised, and accepted that Mr Katamba was right not to sign a register that did not match the timetable, but that leaving the class unsupervised was not justified. It concluded that the protected disclosures were not the sole or principal reason for either dismissal.

Mr Blondell's direct race discrimination claims about probation paperwork and training failed, with the tribunal finding an administrative error on the probation report and that he had received the role-specific training required. His race harassment complaints about being spoken to less, alleged comments about others, and the BME Committee proposal were either not made out or out of time. His victimisation claim failed because the tribunal was not satisfied he had made the alleged protected act of calling Mr Ansell racist.

Mr Katamba's race harassment allegations about comments such as 'black women have attention seeking bodies', 'it's hard to tell black women apart', 'I recently suffered homophobia so I know what it's like to be black', and related remarks were not upheld; the tribunal found several accounts inconsistent, unsupported by contemporaneous complaint or note, or first raised late. His direct race discrimination claim concerning the Student Experience Manager role also failed, as the evidence showed an external candidate, then two black women, were offered the role or considered, and Ms Laurent, who is also black, held it on an interim basis. His pre-dismissal whistleblowing detriment claims were dismissed as out of time, and the tribunal held it was reasonably practicable to present them in time.

The tribunal held that the dismissal of both claimants was for redundancy, not race or whistleblowing. It found there was a genuine redundancy situation, that consultation was genuine and sufficient, and that the Claimants were warned and offered alternatives, including redeployment and the new Pastoral Worker roles. Mr Blondell lacked the qualifying service to bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim, and Mr Katamba's unfair dismissal claim was dismissed as fair. No compensation was awarded because all claims failed or were dismissed for want of jurisdiction.