(sitting alone)10 Mr David Wren v Industrial Services Limited — 2017

Mr David Wren was employed from April 2013 as General Manager for the Scottish Industrial Business Unit. The tribunal found that, after the loss of the Ineos contract and the winding down of work in the South Atlantic, Darren Williams formed the view that the Scottish operation no longer justified a separate Scottish General Manager post. The tribunal accepted that the work in the South Atlantic had been completed and that there was no reasonable prospect of further work materialising there.

On 10 July 2015 the claimant was told in Preston that his role was at risk of redundancy because of the reduced footprint of the Scottish industrial business. He was moved out of Grangemouth to the Glasgow Access Centre, placed on the redeployment register, and then taken through consultation meetings on 27 August and 8 September 2015. The tribunal recorded that the claimant challenged the business rationale, the decision to use a pool of one, and the consultation process, but it accepted the respondent's evidence that the role itself was redundant and that the consultation was extended because of annual leave.

Applying sections 98 and 139 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal held that the reason for dismissal was redundancy and that it was reasonable, in all the circumstances, to treat that as a sufficient reason for dismissal. It found that creating a pool of one for the Scottish General Manager post was within the range of reasonable responses, that the redundancy consultation was not procedurally unfair, and that the appeal process did not undermine the dismissal decision. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore dismissed. The claimant had also withdrawn a holiday pay claim by agreement, and his bonus point was only advanced as part of any compensatory award if the unfair dismissal claim succeeded.