Mr Andrew Poole v TypeStart Limited — 2021

TypeStart Ltd was a small print and book binding business. Mr Andrew Poole had long service as a typesetter and also did general factotum work. The tribunal found that Mrs Nall was, in practice, the only manager, and that the claimant was only an occasional manager when she was absent. After the business suffered a drop in work during the Covid-19 period, the directors furloughed the claimant in April 2020 and later decided to consider redundancies.

The tribunal held that the respondent's selection process was unfair because the pool was defined as one person in a way that was not reasonable on the facts. It found that the claimant, Mr Thompson and Miss Briggs had interchangeable roles to a substantial degree, and that the respondent had not carried out a meaningful assessment of the broader group of typesetters. The tribunal also found that the pool had been defined in a particular way to ensure the claimant's dismissal, with cost and the claimant's job title given undue weight.

The consultation process was also found to be inadequate. The tribunal accepted that the letters sent to the claimant used the wrong template, created the impression that more than one employee was at risk, and promised a formal meeting that never happened. The calls were not clearly identified as consultation meetings at the outset, and the claimant was not given a proper opportunity to put forward proposals such as a pay cut or the possibility of bumping a less experienced employee. Applying the authorities it cited, including Polkey and Software 2000, the tribunal concluded that the redundancy was not inevitable and that no Polkey reduction was appropriate. Remedy was left to a separate hearing.