Mrs G Foster v First Thought (Equine) Limited — 2025

The Tribunal found that Mrs Foster, an Industrial Sewing Machinist employed by First Thought (Equine) Ltd, was unfairly dismissed. The Tribunal accepted that there was a genuine redundancy situation arising from a substantial decline in the respondent's sales from Autumn/Winter 2023, and that the decision to make the girth department redundant was reasonable. However, the dismissal was procedurally unfair, including flaws in the consultation process and the way Mrs Foster was scored during the selection exercise.

On Polkey, the Tribunal concluded that even if a fair consultation process had been carried out and the scoring flaws corrected, Mrs Foster would nonetheless have been dismissed. The possibility of bumping another employee was remote, and a fair process would not have taken longer. A 100% Polkey deduction was therefore applied to the compensatory award.

The basic award was calculated under section 119 ERA 1996 as 1.5 x 2 x £508.61 = £1,525.83, from which the £1,452 redundancy payment already received was deducted under section 122(4), leaving a final basic award of £73.83 payable to the claimant.