Mr Mike Magee (Counsel) For the v Respondent — 2022

The tribunal found that the claimant, Mr Mark Bromilow, had been dismissed by reason of redundancy following a reduction in the Respondent's business caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Respondent's security work for the Dubai Royal Family had reduced substantially, and by the time of the consultation exercise 63 redundancies had been made across the business. The tribunal accepted that a genuine redundancy situation existed within sections 98 and 139 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

The claimant challenged the fairness of the redundancy exercise on several grounds, including the selection pools, the removal of Gary Hurstwaite from the pool, the choice of selection criteria, the scoring process, consultation, and the absence of an appeal outcome. The tribunal found that the decision to split the Newmarket and London teams into separate pools was within the range of reasonable responses, because each pool worked with different subjects and the employer was seeking continuity for those clients. Although the tribunal was not impressed by the explanation for removing Mr Hurstwaite from the pool and noted the lack of documentary evidence on that point, it held that this did not make the claimant's own dismissal unfair.

On the selection criteria and scoring, the tribunal accepted that most of the criteria were subjective, but held that they were capable of objective assessment and had been agreed through consultation. It rejected the argument that a fitness test had to be included, noting that the issue had been raised by another employee but not by the claimant during consultation, and in any event a later fitness test did not show that the omission affected the outcome. The tribunal also accepted that Mr Hardaker had sufficient knowledge of the claimant's performance, that the scoring system was fairly administered, and that the claimant's score of 39 was below the other scores in his pool, which were 43 and 45.

The tribunal concluded that consultation was broadly adequate, that Mr Hurstwaite acted as a diligent representative, and that the failure to follow the internal appeal route did not render the dismissal unfair because the claimant had instructed solicitors and the issues were then addressed in correspondence. It found no evidence that the claimant had been targeted for redundancy because of knowledge about the Princess or the wider Royal family, and said the claimant's belief in a predetermined outcome was not supported by the evidence. Overall, the tribunal held that the process may have had imperfections, but when assessed in the round it was fair and the unfair dismissal claim was dismissed.