Mrs T Banfield v City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council Heard in Sheffield by CVP — 2025

The claimant, Mrs T Banfield, had been employed by City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council since 9 November 1998, latterly as head of service for corporate investigations, information governance and complaints on a fractional (job share) basis since April 2021. She resigned without notice on 8 April 2025. The Tribunal examined a sequence of events beginning in 2023 around a proposed 'workforce change proposal' aimed at her redundancy, followed by issues concerning the handling of her sickness absence between April and September 2024, and the respondent's handling of a data subject access request made on 15 October 2024 and a Freedom of Information request made on 21 February 2025.

The Tribunal found that the respondent's handling of the sickness absence between April and September 2024 had repudiated the implied term of trust and confidence, but that the claimant had affirmed the contract in respect of those matters. The respondent's later handling of the data subject access request and the Freedom of Information request was found to be unreasonable and blameworthy, breached statutory timescales, and was inept; while not in themselves repudiatory, those matters were not innocuous and, applying Omilaju and Kaur, operated as a final straw that revived the earlier waived repudiatory breach.

Taken cumulatively, the respondent's course of conduct amounted to a repudiatory breach of contract entitling the claimant to resign. The Tribunal concluded that the claimant was constructively dismissed and, in the absence of any potentially fair reason being advanced by the respondent, the complaint of constructive unfair dismissal succeeds. Remedy was adjourned to a separate hearing, with the parties encouraged to seek to agree matters; the judgment notes that the likely longevity of the employment relationship will be a central question for any compensatory award.