Case 3306575/2021 · Employment Tribunal
Mr J Ratledge, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2020
- Case reference
- 3306575/2021
- Decision date
- 17 September 2020
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Tynan Members
- Venue
- Cambridge
- Panel members
- Mr C Grant, Mr C Davie
Parties
1 namedClaimant
Mr J Ratledge, Counsel For the
Respondent
- —
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningCharles Macdonald had been the respondent's CEO since 1 July 2013. The tribunal accepted that he made protected disclosures in 2019 about the Greenleys transaction, but found that those disclosures were made to and about Milton Keynes Council rather than the respondent. His detriment complaints under sections 47B and 48 ERA 1996 were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because they were presented out of time, and the tribunal found it was reasonably practicable to notify Acas and present the claims within the primary limitation period.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whistleblowing | The section 47B detriment complaints were dismissed for want of jurisdiction because the tribunal found the claim out of time and held it was reasonably practicable to notify Acas and present the claims within the primary time limit. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Whistleblowing | The section 103A automatic unfair dismissal complaint failed because the tribunal found the protected disclosures played no part in the dismissal and that the Bracey proposal was a genuine cost-saving proposal, not a disguised reason for dismissal. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Unfair dismissal | The section 98 unfair dismissal complaint succeeded. The tribunal found the respondent had not proved redundancy within section 139(1)(b)(i) ERA 1996 and held the dismissal unfair because the Board did not give proper final consideration to the claimant's reduced-hours proposal and did not adequately resolve the pooling alternative. | Upheld | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 references- reasonable practicability test
- Arthur v London Eastern Railway series test
- Royal Mail Group Ltd v Jhuti principle
- s.98(4) ERA 1996
- Polkey v AE Dayton Services Limited
- Williams v Compair Maxam Ltd principles
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
- Open official judgment 1 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 2 PDF on gov.uk
- Open official judgment 3 PDF on gov.uk
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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