Miss Venkata, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2022

This was an application for interim relief under section 128 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The claimant said she had made protected disclosures about working from home and social distancing across seven sites, and that later criticism, grievance handling, an appeal, and a subject access request led to her resignation on 1 April 2022. The respondent said there had been earlier performance concerns, the grievance and appeal were investigated, and there was no repudiatory breach or protected-disclosure reason for resignation.

The tribunal applied the section 129 ERA 1996 "likely to succeed" test and referred to Ministry of Justice v Saffars [2011] IRLR 562. It accepted that four of the five alleged protected disclosures were accepted by the respondent as having been made, though not accepted as qualifying protected disclosures, and noted that the first alleged disclosure at a meeting on 30 June 2021 was not accepted by the respondent. It also observed that the first five alleged detriments appeared potentially out of time because they were before 14 July 2021.

On the material before it, the tribunal found it could not conclude that the claimant had a pretty good chance of success at a full hearing in showing that the principal or main reason for her resignation was the making of qualifying protected disclosures and an alleged repudiatory breach of the implied term of trust and confidence. It therefore refused interim relief and recorded that the application did not succeed. The judgment did not finally determine the underlying substantive claims.