C Lucas (sitting alone)5 Mr David Colquhoun v Respondent — 2017

Mr David Colquhoun brought a single claim that Independent Living Support Limited unfairly dismissed him with effect from 29 June 2016. The tribunal recorded that, although the claimant briefly sought to raise protected disclosure allegations during the hearing, he then confirmed that he was not pursuing any whistleblowing claim and would proceed only with the unfair dismissal case.

The tribunal found that the respondent was a registered charity and that the claimant had worked for it from 9 July 2009 in an in-house IT support role. It accepted that by early 2016 the trustees were concerned about funding and future cuts, decided to outsource IT support, and treated the claimant's post as a singleton role. On that basis the tribunal held that the reason for dismissal was redundancy within section 139 ERA 1996 and therefore a potentially fair reason under section 98(2)(c) ERA 1996.

The tribunal also found that the dismissal procedure was flawed: there had been no consultation, no meaningful redundancy process, and no appeal hearing. The respondent accepted that the dismissal was procedurally unfair. However, applying section 98(4) ERA 1996 and the authorities it cited, the tribunal held that the overall dismissal was fair because, given the diminution in the need for in-house IT support, the claimant's role as the only person doing that work, and the trustees' concern about confidentiality, consultation or appeal would not have changed the outcome. The claim was therefore dismissed and no award was made.