Mr S Sim, Solicitor For the v Mr. D. Ludlow, Solicitor — 2022

The claimant was employed as an accounts administrator at the respondent's Send branch from 23 June 2018 and was dismissed on 24 January 2021. The respondent relied on redundancy arising from a proposed 50/50 accounts and funeral-arranging role, but the tribunal found that the decision to make the claimant redundant had already been taken by the end of November 2020 before consultation took place. It held that the 18 December meeting was therefore not a genuine proposal stage in the redundancy process.

The tribunal found that the redundancy was not genuine. It accepted that an advert placed around 28 January 2021 was for the claimant's previous role, that the interview for the new role lasted 12 minutes, and that the respondent did not produce the scoring system, interview notes, or feedback requested by the claimant. It did not accept the respondent's explanations for the advert, the absence of feedback, or the missing documents. The tribunal concluded that the process was a sham and that the dismissal was unfair.

In the alternative, the tribunal held that even if the reason had been redundancy, the dismissal was still unfair under s.98(4) ERA 1996. It found that there was no evidence of selection criteria, that consultation was not meaningful because the decision had already been made, and that the interview process for alternative employment was too brief to demonstrate a fair assessment. The tribunal also referred to the respondent's failure to consider other ways of retaining the claimant, such as reduced hours or adding duties on a trial basis.

On the separate complaint about written particulars, the tribunal found that the claimant had not received terms and conditions meeting the requirements of s.1 ERA 1996. It awarded two weeks' pay under s.38 of the Employment Act 2002, but not the higher four weeks' award, because the respondent had a terms-and-conditions document and the failure was not treated as a complete or deliberate disregard of the statutory requirement. The award was calculated from monthly pay of £1,634 and a weekly figure of £377.08, producing £754.16 gross. Remedy for unfair dismissal was left to a later hearing.