In person For the v Mr Clive Coote, Managing Director — 2024

Ms K Lawrence was employed by Eastern Region Roof Training Group as Financial & Office Manager from 15 May 2021 until her dismissal on 31 May 2023. The Tribunal recorded that the claim for unlawful deduction of wages was no longer pursued because the sum had been paid, and that the remaining dispute concerned whether the dismissal was genuinely redundancy or whether it was prompted by the April 2023 VAT/HMRC issue and the claimant being blamed for it.

The Tribunal accepted that the respondent was in a difficult financial position and that, applying s.139 ERA 1996, the requirements of the business for employees to do the claimant's work had diminished. It found that the respondent could manage without a full-time Financial and Office Manager, pointing to the temporary outsourcing of payroll and the later employment of a part-time Financial Controller. The Tribunal therefore held that the reason for dismissal fell within redundancy, but it also found that the respondent did not warn or consult the claimant and did not properly explore the suggested part-time freelance alternative role.

Applying s.98(4) ERA 1996 and the approach in Polkey v AE Dayton Services, the Tribunal concluded that the dismissal was unfair because the redundancy procedure was not fair or reasonable. On remedy, it held that the claimant was not entitled to a basic award because she had already received a redundancy payment under s.122(4)(b) ERA 1996. It awarded a compensatory award of £2,311, made up of £1,107 for the annual difference between her current net salary and the financial controller's net FTE salary, £1,158 for two weeks' loss of earnings, and £46 for interview travel expenses under s.123(2)(a) ERA 1996.