Claimant v The Forestry Commission — 2021

The claimant, Timothy Paul Knight, brought the claims after his employment as a Computing Officer, later Enterprise Systems Administrator, ended by redundancy following the Forestry Commission's devolution of shared services. He objected to the final hearing being by video and sought an adjournment relying on autism, but the judge refused the adjournment because no medical evidence or concrete adjustment proposal was provided, the evidence was largely documentary, and a remote hearing was feasible with his representative.

The tribunal struck out the proceedings under Rule 37(1)(b), (c) and (d). It found the claimant and his representative had repeatedly failed to comply with case management directions, including providing a schedule of loss, particulars of other payments, disclosure, a bundle agreement and witness evidence, and had also failed to engage properly with the preliminary hearing and the final hearing. The judge held that the case had been conducted unreasonably, that the orders of the tribunal had been deliberately ignored, and that the claim was not being actively pursued.

On the merits, the tribunal found there was a genuine redundancy arising from the wider reorganisation. It accepted the respondent's evidence that all shared service roles were at risk, that the claimant was told he was at risk from June 2018 after earlier consultations, that he was offered voluntary redundancy and redeployment support, that he declined ring-fenced roles in Scotland, and that his application for a PB3 role was unsuccessful on the respondent's scoring process. Applying s.95 and s.98(2) and (4) ERA 1996, the judge concluded that the respondent acted reasonably in treating redundancy as a sufficient reason for dismissal.

The tribunal also rejected the claimant's argument that the compulsory redundancy notice lacked authority because Cabinet Office approval had not yet been obtained. It read the Civil Service Compensation Scheme guidance as creating one redundancy scheme with voluntary and compulsory stages and found that authorisation for the scheme as a whole had already been given when notice was issued. In the alternative, any timing defect would have been cured by the Polkey principle. It would therefore have dismissed the redundancy payment and holiday pay complaints, and the claim for other payments, but would have upheld the notice pay complaint only to the extent of one day's unpaid notice pay. No quantified award was made because the claims were struck out.