Ms L Shields v Glasgow Group of the Riding for the — 2019

The tribunal held that Ms L Shields was not automatically unfairly dismissed under section 103A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and dismissed the claim. It first resolved a preliminary issue about the employer’s identity, finding that the respondent was correctly named as Glasgow Group of the Riding for the Disabled Association.

The tribunal considered four alleged protected disclosures: an incident said to involve Julia Hillson sitting on a vulnerable adult’s knee, concerns about PVG checks, alleged mistreatment of horses, and requests for grit during icy weather. It found that none of these amounted to a protected disclosure under section 43B ERA 1996. Several were characterised as questions or expressions of opinion rather than disclosures of information, and the tribunal found no sufficient evidence that the claimant had made the relevant disclosures in the way she alleged. The tribunal also accepted that the respondent had its own PVG policy and was not shown to be concealing that position.

In the alternative, the tribunal found that the dismissal was for the reasons given by Ms McKeeman and recorded in the contemporaneous documents: concerns about rider forms being left out and not completed, the claimant not adhering to management structure, concerns about work performance, and an incident involving a heated discussion in front of junior staff and volunteers. It accepted that the respondent relied on its handbook discretion for short-service staff and that the claimant’s less than two years’ service explained the summary nature of the dismissal. The appeal, heard by an external consultant on 5 July 2018, was unsuccessful.