Mrs S McGinn v Represented by: Mr G Bathgate - Solicitor South Ayrshire Women’s Aid — 2018

Mrs S McGinn had worked for South Ayrshire Women’s Aid since 10 December 1990 as a Support Worker. In March 2018, while she was on holiday, the respondent received complaints from two service users, X and Y. The complaints concerned a failure to provide Y with a housing support letter before leave, a failure to progress support for X in relation to a Buttle Trust fridge/freezer grant, and failures to record those matters on the respondent’s Oasis system. Following investigation and disciplinary proceedings, she was summarily dismissed for gross misconduct on 3 April 2018 and her appeal was unsuccessful.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had failed to record notes on Oasis and had not provided Y’s letter before going on holiday, but it held that dismissal fell outside the band of reasonable responses under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. It found there was no evidence that the respondent’s reputation had been adversely affected by the claimant’s omissions, and it noted that the disciplinary policy did not expressly identify failure to record notes on Oasis as gross misconduct. The tribunal also found that no alternative sanction to dismissal had been considered at either the disciplinary or appeal stage. It further noted that the later reliance on loss of trust and confidence, and on the claimant being untruthful, was not foreshadowed in the papers sent to her before the disciplinary hearing.

On remedy, the tribunal found the claimant largely to blame for the failures to record information and applied a 75% reduction to both the basic award and the compensatory award under sections 122(2) and 123(6) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. It awarded a basic award of £3,399.38 and a compensatory award of £4,865.91. The total monetary award was £8,265.29, of which the prescribed element was £3,063.42 and the balance was £5,201.87.