Miss Sundas Kamran v Represented by: Mr W McParland,15 Solicitor Mr Haitham Tabra — 2022

The case originally included age discrimination and protected disclosure claims, but the final hearing proceeded on unfair dismissal, breach of contract and the balance of a statutory redundancy payment after those other claims had been withdrawn. Miss Sundas Kamran worked part-time as a Post Office clerk for Mr Haitham Tabra, a sole trader operating a Post Office business in Dundee.

The tribunal accepted that the respondent's reason for dismissal was redundancy. It found that the business was facing anticipated reductions in income following changes to ATM fees, MDA2 remuneration and possible business rates, and that the respondent decided to reduce staff costs. The tribunal did not accept the claimant's case that the redundancy was a sham.

However, the dismissal was held to be unfair under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 because there had been no proper consultation before the decision. The claimant was not given the skills matrix, there was no formal warning of redundancy, no invitation to a consultation meeting, no adequate record of meetings, and the email of 16 November 2021 did not reflect a prior consultation process. The tribunal also held that even on the respondent's account of meetings on 1 and 3 November 2021, the process would still have been unfair because the claimant had not been given a reasonable opportunity to comment on the criteria and scoring.

On remedy, the claimant did not seek reinstatement. There was no basic award because a redundancy payment had been made. The tribunal accepted that she mitigated her loss and agreed loss to 21 February 2022 at £2,328.70, plus £350 for loss of statutory rights, but applied a 50% Polkey reduction because there was a clear risk that she would have been selected for redundancy in a fair process. The final compensatory award was £1,339.35.