Case 4100010/2023 · Employment Tribunal
Claimant v Scottish Borders Council — 2023
- Case reference
- 4100010/2023
- Decision date
- 3 July 2023
- Jurisdiction
- Scotland
- Judge
- Employment Judge J McCluskey
- Venue
- Edinburgh
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Claimant
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant was employed by Scottish Borders Council as a cleaner at KKI premises. KKI reduced its required cleaning service from 75 hours per week to 40 hours per week and from three cleaning staff to two. The Tribunal accepted that this was a diminished requirement for employees to carry out cleaning work at the place where the claimant was employed, and that the reason or principal reason for dismissal was redundancy.
The Tribunal rejected the alternative constructive dismissal case because the claimant did not resign. It found that the respondent's letter of 14 September 2022 gave notice of termination, that the respondent could not unilaterally withdraw that notice, and that any confusion caused by the later undated letter did not change the dismissal into a resignation or constructive dismissal.
On fairness, the Tribunal found that the respondent adequately warned and consulted the claimant, acted within the range of reasonable responses in treating all three existing posts as deleted and creating two new posts, and took reasonable steps to identify alternative employment. The claimant was offered a 20-hour post at KKI and was provided with vacancy information, but he decided not to take the new KKI role. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed.
Claims and outcomes
5 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | The Tribunal found the reason for dismissal was redundancy and that dismissal was within the range of reasonable conduct an employer could have adopted. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Constructive dismissal | The claimant pleaded constructive dismissal in the alternative, but the Tribunal found he had not resigned and had instead been dismissed on notice by the respondent. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Redundancy | The claimant advised at the outset of the hearing that a statutory redundancy payment had been received and he no longer insisted upon this claim; the judgment dismissed the withdrawn claim. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Breach of contract | The claimant withdrew this claim at the outset of the hearing; the judgment dismissed the withdrawn claim. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Holiday pay | The claimant withdrew this claim at the outset of the hearing; the judgment dismissed the withdrawn claim. | Withdrawn | — | — |
Legal tests applied
10 references- s.94 Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.95(1) Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.95(2) Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.139(1) Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.98 Employment Rights Act 1996
- Polkey v AE Dayton Services
- Williams v Compair Maxam
- Hogg v Dover College
- Harris and Russell Ltd v Slingsby
- High Table Ltd v Horst
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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