Mr A Reid and Mr G Gibson (McKenzie Friends from BLAS Services) For the v Mr P Collins — 2023

The claimant worked as a cleaner at two sites, New River and Edmonton, for the respondent, which provided cleaning services to Fusion Lifestyle. In July and August 2021 the respondent was told its services would cease at the New River site and began TUPE information and consultation, including a detailed TUPE letter to the claimant on 16 August 2021 and a redundancy consultation letter on 20 August 2021. The claimant did not start work for Haringey on 29 August 2021. She was dismissed by reason of redundancy on 4 October 2021 and received a redundancy payment in relation to Edmonton, while the respondent maintained that the New River work had transferred under TUPE and that no redundancy payment was due for that element.

The tribunal did not determine the TUPE issue. It held that there was insufficient material before it to strike out the case on the basis of a transfer to Haringey, and the respondent did not press that point. The tribunal instead focused on limitation. The claim was presented on 21 May 2022 after early conciliation started on 4 May 2022 and ended with a certificate on 9 May 2022. On the tribunal's analysis, if there was no TUPE transfer the employment ended on 12 November 2021, so the primary limitation period expired on 12 February 2022.

The race discrimination claim was struck out because the tribunal found it had no reasonable prospect of success. It accepted that the claimant's case was essentially that she had not been transferred to Haringey and that she associated that with her race, but it found the respondent had acted as it thought appropriate in a situation it reasonably considered to involve TUPE. The tribunal said the respondent had given the claimant appropriate information, copied its correspondence with Haringey to her, supported her as best it could, and advised her to seek advice.

The unfair dismissal and redundancy payment claims were also struck out. The tribunal held that the claimant knew before the effective date of termination that Fusion's work was ceasing, that the respondent had no suitable alternative employment, that TUPE was disputed, and that she should seek legal advice. It was not persuaded that it was not reasonably practicable to present the claims within the primary limitation period. Even if that hurdle had been passed, the tribunal said the claim was not brought within a reasonable period afterwards, because BLAS had been instructed in March 2022 but early conciliation was not notified until 4 May 2022 and the claim was not presented until 21 May 2022.