Ms G Nicholls, Counsel For the v Respondent — 2022

Mrs Stroud had been employed by Mitie from 7 January 2002 and was a Quality Lead in the QHSE team. The tribunal accepted the respondent's case that there was a genuine redundancy situation within its Project 2025 transformation programme, with a reduction of one Quality Lead role, and it rejected the suggestion that the redundancy was created on the instruction of Mr Aloni or that the earlier performance management steps were a device to engineer dismissal.

The tribunal nevertheless held that the dismissal was unfair under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. It accepted that the claimant was warned of the redundancy on 4 March 2020, but found that consultation was perfunctory, with no meaningful discussion of the scoring matrices or the claimant's questions raised on 18 March 2020. It also found that the respondent did not give her a proper opportunity to discuss the scores face to face or by Teams, and that the alternative employment exercise was also perfunctory.

On selection, the tribunal accepted the pool of four Quality Leads and the objective nature of the criteria, and it considered the use of one consistent scorer across the four assessments to be within the range of reasonable responses. However, it held that the criteria were not fairly applied to the claimant because the letter of concern and performance improvement plan were not disciplinary sanctions, so it was not reasonable to mark her down on disciplinary record in that way, and the same underlying issues were also taken into account under audit performance and management. The appeal was found to be perfunctory and not based on a fair investigation.

On Polkey, the tribunal rejected both parties' extremes and held that there remained a 25% chance the claimant would have been dismissed in any event. For remedy, it found that the statutory redundancy payment of £10,237.50 extinguished the basic award. It calculated a loss period of 48 weeks, using net weekly pay of £827.43 and benefits of £312.23, with loss of statutory rights of £500, deducted Jobseeker's Allowance of £1,933.10, and then applied the 25% Polkey reduction and tax gross-up. The judgment records a compensatory award of £46,933.64, with £45,000.54 as the final award to the claimant and £1,933.10 to be recouped to the DWP.