Ms Amanda Sinclair v Hotel Corporation of Edinburgh Limited — 2021

Ms Amanda Sinclair was employed by Hotel Corporation of Edinburgh Limited, not by the trading name Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa. The tribunal accepted the documentary evidence showing that the employer was Hotel Corporation of Edinburgh Limited and found that the claimant's employment ended on 23 October 2020 after she had been given 12 weeks' notice, with the respondent relying on redundancy arising from the Covid-19 downturn.

On unfair dismissal, the tribunal found that there was a genuine redundancy situation within section 98(2)(c) ERA 1996 and that the respondent acted reasonably within section 98(4). It relied on the collective consultation carried out with staff representatives, the pooling of the Guest Service Centre Agents together, the objective scoring criteria, and the fact that the claimant was given individual consultation and an appeal right. The tribunal found no evidential basis for the claimant's allegation of bias in the scoring exercise, and it held that the later Rooms Controller role did not make the dismissal unfair because that role was only conceived in November 2020, after the claimant's employment had ended.

For the money claims, the tribunal rejected the claimant's case that she remained entitled to a week's lying-time pay. It found on the balance of probabilities that any earlier arrangement had been superseded by later contractual changes, including updated pay terms in the documents she signed or received over the years. However, the tribunal accepted that she had paid a locker key deposit and that this had not been repaid when her employment ended. It ordered the respondent to reimburse £10 for that deposit. The tribunal did not award any compensation for unfair dismissal because the dismissal claim failed.