Member A Grant Tribunal Member I Ashraf Ms E Whyte v Represented by Ms K Stein - Advocate Falkirk Council — 2023

The tribunal held that the claimant's post as Senior Housing Needs Assessment Officer was not 'like work' with Stephen Mosson's Senior Allocations Officer post for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010. It found only a limited overlap in generic line-management tasks such as absence, performance, leave and team meetings. Beyond that, the tribunal accepted that the two teams did materially different work: the claimant's role was centred on homeless assessments, statutory decision-making, appeals and front-line homelessness work, while Mosson's role concerned allocations, choice-based lettings, housing-stock administration, RSL liaison and related policy work. The equal pay complaint was therefore dismissed.

On victimisation, the tribunal accepted that the claimant's August and September 2021 grievances were protected acts. It rejected the complaint about removal from the monthly performance part of service meetings from March 2022, finding that LS changed the meeting structure for operational reasons and that the change affected SM as well. It upheld the complaint that, on 11 May 2022, the claimant was told she should no longer administer homeless appeals and that this work was removed from her. The tribunal found that this was a detriment and, applying the burden of proof provisions, concluded that the claimant's equal pay grievances were a cause of that treatment. It also upheld the complaint that in July and September 2022 AA told the claimant that KG had instructed her not to speak to the claimant, finding that this too was a detriment and that the respondent had not shown a non-victimising explanation.

The tribunal also upheld constructive unfair dismissal. It found that the respondent allowed repeated and substantial delays in the re-evaluation process from November 2021 onwards, halted work on it during the claimant's sickness absence, failed to progress matters promptly after her return, removed her appeals work in May 2022, and imposed formal absence monitoring when the claimant had not been told she was on informal monitoring. It further found that the respondent failed to progress the claimant's 19 August 2022 grievance appeal and that LS's 7 September 2022 remark, 'What more could we do?', was capable of acting as a final straw in the context of the unresolved issues. The claimant resigned on 20 September 2022 and the tribunal held that she resigned in response to the breach. Remedy was reserved to a later hearing.