: A Shanahan C Rochford Dr L Munjoma v The Scottish Ministers — 2023

The claimant, a contract worker assigned by Pertemps to Social Security Scotland as a Learning Facilitator, brought complaints of direct race discrimination and harassment related to race. The tribunal found that she described herself as a person of colour and of Zimbabwean origin, and considered alleged treatment including delays in equipment and access, a reduced training route-way, meetings about readiness and capability, monitoring of training sessions, intervention during a training session, termination of the assignment, lack of formal assessment, and handling of her complaint.

The tribunal accepted that there were concerns about the claimant's familiarity with MS Teams, retention of digital information, preparation for training delivery, and an incident in which sensitive information about a learner was inadvertently shared with the class. It found the respondent's reasons for the treatment were connected with equipment shortages, service desk delays, the respondent's training arrangements for Pertemps staff, capability concerns, support needs, and the training incident, rather than race, colour or national origin.

For the harassment complaint, the tribunal accepted that aspects of the 25 April 2022 meeting and Mr Smith's intervention on 4 May 2022 amounted to unwanted conduct for the claimant, and accepted in relation to the latter that it was reasonable for the conduct to have created a humiliating environment. However, it found that the unwanted conduct was not related to race. Both complaints were dismissed and no remedy was awarded.