Mr Lawrence, HR Consultant For the v Respondent — 2022

Mr Jason Wenn’s continuous employment dispute was resolved by the tribunal’s finding that he was an employee from May 2019, when he became the respondent’s site manager, and that his earlier work before that date had been on a self-employed labour basis only. The tribunal attached little, if any, weight to the written statements of Mr Barker and Miss Barker because they did not attend the hearing and were not available for cross-examination.

On the redundancy issue, the tribunal found that there was a genuine redundancy situation but that the process was unfair. It held that the respondent gave no real warning of the redundancies before 7 November 2021, did not carry out meaningful consultation, did not consider ways of avoiding redundancies or reducing their number, and did not explore alternative employment. The tribunal also found that a vacant Health and Safety Officer role was not offered to the claimant, even on a trial basis, and that the redundancy consultation letter was not supported by any actual consultation meetings.

The tribunal also found the later dismissal for alleged conduct unfair. After the claimant returned the first company telephone and then the second telephone was collected on 6 January 2022, the respondent issued disciplinary and dismissal letters alleging attempted fraud in relation to the telephone. The tribunal found there had been no proper investigation into the allegation, no reasonable belief that the claimant was attempting to steal the telephone, and no reasonable response to the facts known at the time of dismissal.

The judgment was a liability judgment only. The tribunal recorded that a remedy hearing would be arranged to consider compensation and Polkey arguments, so no final monetary award was made in this decision.