Mr G Handley v Lick Creative Limited — 2021

The tribunal found that the Respondent, Lick Creative Limited, was operating in a genuine redundancy situation following the Covid-19 downturn. The Claimant worked as Head of Creative Services - Film and Entertainment, and the tribunal accepted that the film and entertainment work in which he was primarily engaged had reduced before the pandemic and had effectively stopped by April 2020. The restructure therefore removed his role, and he was dismissed for redundancy with effect from 12 October 2020.

The main dispute was whether the Claimant should have been pooled more broadly, including with Mr Keep and with other creative roles, or whether bumping should have been used. The tribunal held that Mr Pritchard and later Mr Weatherbed genuinely applied their minds to the pool, that the Claimant was primarily assigned to film and entertainment work, and that Mr Keep did very different work for different clients. It was also open to the Respondent to conclude that the Claimant’s cover work and wider skills did not make his role sufficiently similar to those of account managers, senior designers, art workers or project managers to require those posts to be included in the pool.

The tribunal also found that consultation was carried out properly at both collective and individual level, and that the Claimant had a fair opportunity to make points about his selection, possible redeployment and alternatives to redundancy. The Respondent considered vacancy options, including temporary roles, and there was no obligation to create work or recruit to the Lidl Account Manager role because that post was not filled for budgetary reasons. Applying the redundancy authorities cited in the judgment, the tribunal concluded that the dismissal was fair in all the circumstances, so the unfair dismissal claim failed and was dismissed.