Ms Fiona Harrison v Heritage Venues Limited — 2023

The claimant, Ms Fiona Harrison, worked for Heritage Venues Limited from 16 April 2016 until her dismissal on 18 October 2022. After maternity leave she returned on 3 May 2022 working part-time for 20 hours a week. The tribunal found that on her return her line management duties were removed, that she was later placed at risk of redundancy, and that the respondent selected her for redundancy in a process that treated her as a pool of one. The tribunal accepted that the reason for dismissal was redundancy within section 139 ERA 1996, but held that the dismissal process was unfair because the claimant and her two colleagues in operations were doing materially the same work and the claimant’s part-time status was the determining factor in selecting her for redundancy.

On the unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal considered the respondent’s consultation and appeal process, including the scoring matrix used on appeal. It found that the scoring exercise was not objectively or fairly applied, that some of the claimant’s original scores were unjustifiably low, and that the respondent had introduced a criterion requiring 66 events per year which inevitably disadvantaged the claimant as a part-time worker. The tribunal also found that the respondent did not give proper credit for the claimant’s willingness to increase her hours to four days a week. It rejected the respondent’s argument that a fair process would still probably have led to dismissal and therefore made no Polkey reduction.

On the indirect sex discrimination claim, the claimant relied on a PCP said to include using part-time working status as a redundancy selection criterion. The tribunal accepted that the first two PCPs pleaded were not established or had not been applied to her, but held that the third PCP was made out. It found that the claimant was selected for redundancy because she was a part-time worker, that the PCP put women at a particular disadvantage compared with men, and that it also put the claimant at that disadvantage. The tribunal rejected the respondent’s justification case, finding that the reasons advanced about business needs and the problems said to arise from job sharing were too general and did not explain why a job share or other alternative could not work in this case.

The tribunal also upheld the part-time worker detriment claim under regulation 5 of the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000. It rejected the respondent’s submission that the issue was merely the claimant’s inability to handle the number of clients required by the business rather than her status as a part-time worker. The tribunal concluded that this was a distinction without a difference on the facts, and that the claimant had been selected for redundancy because of her part-time working status. It again rejected justification on the evidence before it. The hearing was a liability judgment only; remedy was adjourned to a hearing listed for 15 January 2024.