Ms T Nelson v The City of Edinburgh Council — 2023

The claimant alleged sex discrimination and detriment for making a protected disclosure. At the preliminary hearing she confirmed that the sex discrimination claim was limited to the refusal of annual leave on 16 March 2022, when she said male colleagues were granted leave to attend a football match. The respondent did not seek strike out of that allegation at this stage, and the Tribunal directed that it proceed to a final hearing, with jurisdiction and time bar still to be determined.

The alleged protected disclosure concerned what the claimant described as nepotism and cronyism in recruitment. The Tribunal considered that, if the claimant relied on her email of 2 January 2022, the email appeared to make an allegation that something inappropriate may have happened rather than disclose information tending to show breach of a legal obligation. The claimant was unable to identify the policy or legal obligation relied upon, although the Tribunal accepted that the disclosure was made internally to an appropriate person if it otherwise qualified.

The Tribunal found that the alleged detriments remained vague and lacking in specification despite several opportunities to clarify them. It also found no pleaded basis linking the alleged detriments to any protected disclosure, and noted that the claimant accepted she did not know whether relevant colleagues knew she had made such a disclosure. The section 47B claim was therefore struck out as having no reasonable prospects of success, while the strike-out application based on non-compliance with an order was refused.