Ms Nicola France v Bannockburn Miners Charitable Society — 2021

Ms Nicola France was employed by Bannockburn Miners Charitable Society from 5 March 2018 until 24 July 2020. She moved from assistant manager to general bar staff on 16 hours per week when she began maternity leave, and the tribunal recorded issues raised in late 2019 about council tax arrestment deductions, pension contributions, and accrued holiday pay. Those issues led to a collective grievance by bar staff, but the tribunal found that by spring 2020 the respondent's bar trade had fallen sharply because of the Covid-19 closure and the loss of functions and other trading.

In June 2020 the respondent began a redundancy consultation exercise with external HR input from French Duncan. The claimant was provisionally selected together with other bar staff, and she had individual consultation calls on 30 June and 9 July 2020. She suggested alternatives including reduced hours for herself or reductions in management hours, but the tribunal accepted the respondent's explanation that retaining an extra employee would add ongoing costs and that reduced management time was not a viable option. The claimant did not appeal her dismissal.

The tribunal held that the respondent had proved redundancy was the reason for dismissal within section 139 ERA 1996 and that the dismissal fell within the range of reasonable responses under section 98(4) ERA 1996. It rejected the claimant's case that the redundancy process was a sham or an opportunity to remove problematic employees, noting in particular that two of the affected bar staff had also been involved in the collective grievance and that the formal redundancy process had been conducted through consultation and written correspondence. The tribunal also considered the claimant's points about earlier warning, consultation over alternatives, Kayleigh Morton's reduced-hours request, and the use of the CJRS, and found none of them made the dismissal unfair.

The unfair dismissal claim was therefore refused. The tribunal added that, even if dismissal had been unfair, the claimant had not shown adequate efforts to mitigate loss and would not have received a compensatory award; it also found that the statutory redundancy payment had been made in the correct amount, so no basic award would have been due.