Mr Maru, claimant’s husband For the v Respondent — 2021

The claimant, Ms M Maru, was dismissed on 14 December 2018 after a restructure at the London Borough of Brent deleted both project officer posts and replaced them with a single lower-grade support officer role. The respondent accepted dismissal and said the reason was redundancy; the tribunal framed the issue under unfair dismissal and considered whether the respondent had shown a potentially fair reason, including redundancy under s.98(2)(c) ERA 1996 or, in the alternative, some other substantial reason under s.98(1)(b) ERA 1996.

The tribunal found that the restructure was a management decision and that it was not for the tribunal to substitute its own view for that of the employer. It accepted that the restructure was genuine, that the job-matching exercise and consultation process were part of a larger department-wide reorganisation, and that the respondent followed its managing change policy in material respects. The tribunal also accepted that the claimant had annual appraisals without apparent performance issues, but noted that the appraisals had identified developmental areas and did not record any challenge to the existing job description.

On process, the tribunal found that staff were told about the restructure on 30 August 2018, that the claimant was told she and her colleague would be offered ring-fenced interviews for the new post, and that the claimant knew the core competencies relevant to the interview from the documents provided. It found that the claimant did not raise any issue after receiving the 8 October interview invitation, although she could have done so, including if she wanted more time. The tribunal also found that she performed well in the pre-interview assignment and presentation but did not provide sufficient evidence to meet the core competencies at interview.

The tribunal concluded that the respondent’s decisions and process were within the range of responses open to a reasonable employer under s.98(4) ERA 1996. It held that the timing of the interview invitation did not affect the outcome, and that the later December recruitment round, which used open competition and a different format, did not render the earlier ring-fenced process unfair. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed and no remedy was awarded.