C Lucas (Sitting Alone) Mrs Tracey Taylor v Respondent — 2017

Mrs Tracey Taylor was employed by Gilmourbanks Ltd at Maben House from 16 March 2015 until her summary dismissal on 30 November 2015. Her case was pleaded as a whistleblowing claim and an unfair dismissal claim based on the allegation that she had made protected disclosures about matters including restraint incidents, late completion of incident reports, petty cash handling, and concerns said to have been raised by a colleague in October 2015.

The tribunal held that the claimant had not made any protected disclosure in the statutory sense. Applying the distinction between information and allegation discussed in Cavendish Munro Professional Risks Management Ltd v Geduld and Goode v Marks and Spencer Plc, it found that the pleaded matters were not disclosures of information by the claimant that met s.43B ERA 1996. It accepted that she had raised concerns and criticisms, but concluded that this was not enough. It also found that she did not refer her concerns to external regulatory bodies despite knowing that the Care Inspectorate and SSSC were available, and it was not satisfied that the claimant herself had made the October 2015 disclosure attributed to Ms Rogerson.

The tribunal found that the dismissal was for conduct-related reasons, not because of any protected disclosure. The reasons recorded by the respondent included failure to disclose a prior SSSC investigation and the reasons for a previous dismissal, breaches of confidentiality, inappropriate use of petty cash, failure to complete the required PDA/SVQ work for the manager role, refusal to carry out a management instruction about a television, and concerns about absence and timekeeping. Because no protected disclosure was proved, the s.103A claim failed. The tribunal also said that, if an ordinary unfair dismissal complaint was implicit in the ET1, it could not be heard because the claimant had less than two years' continuous service. The claim was dismissed in its entirety, and the tribunal reserved the question of expenses.