Member K Culloch Tribunal Member A Shanahan Mrs Li R R MacLeod v Represented by: Mr M Ross, Solicitor Stirling Council — 2025

Mrs Li Rong Rong MacLeod brought a direct discrimination claim under section 13 of the Equality Act 2010 relying on race and belief. The tribunal accepted that the claimant’s non-appointment to the two posts she relied on amounted to less favourable treatment and that her belief was a protected belief, but the case turned on causation: whether race or belief was any effective reason for the treatment.

For the first role at Bluebell House, the claimant was initially booked for an SLA post on 30 August 2023, but on 31 August and 1 September 2023 she was told that additional support from the respondent’s ASN Outreach team meant the school no longer required SLA support. The tribunal found that this change in circumstances was the sole reason the booking was withdrawn, that the post ceased to be a vacancy, and that race or belief played no part in the decision.

For the second role at Stirling High School, Ms Fiona McGonigle sifted fourteen applications and selected four candidates for interview because they met the essential criteria, including experience dealing with pupils exhibiting challenging behaviour. The claimant was not interviewed because her application did not sufficiently meet those criteria, and nine other applicants were also not interviewed. The tribunal found that Ms McGonigle did not know of the claimant’s belief, that race did not influence the sift, and that the claimant’s reliance on earlier, unrelated matters did not establish a prima facie case and was in any event outside the pleaded case and out of time.

Applying the burden of proof authorities it cited, including Igen v Wong, Madarassy, Shamoon and related cases, the tribunal held that the claimant had not shown facts from which discrimination could be inferred. It concluded that an hypothetical comparator in materially the same circumstances would have been treated the same way, and therefore dismissed the claim in full. No remedy arose.