Case 8001793/2024 · Employment Tribunal
Mr R J S Franchi v Department for Work and Pensions — 2025
- Case reference
- 8001793/2024
- Decision date
- 8 July 2025
- Jurisdiction
- Scotland
- Judge
- Employment Judge P O’Donnell
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr R J S Franchi
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant brought direct age discrimination complaints under the Equality Act 2010 about pay rises. One remaining claim, concerning comparators on SEO Grades, was withdrawn at the hearing and dismissed under Rule 51.
The respondent applied to strike out the remaining claim, which concerned employees on Employee Deal terms receiving a 5.5% pay rise while the claimant, on legacy terms, received 4.5%. The Tribunal recorded that the claimant and comparators were on different terms and conditions, that all employees on legacy terms had the option to move to Employee Deal terms, and that the claimant had chosen not to do so.
Taking the claimant's case at its highest, the Tribunal found that the reason for the different pay rise was the difference between legacy and Employee Deal terms, not age. The claimant did not argue that staff were placed on different terms because of age and did not identify the additional basis needed to infer age discrimination. The Tribunal struck out the remaining claim under Rule 38 as having no reasonable prospects of success.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recordedThis case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.
| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Age discrimination | Claim 1, direct age discrimination concerning a 5.5% pay rise for employees on Employee Deal terms compared with a 4.5% pay rise for the claimant on legacy terms, was struck out under Rule 38 as having no reasonable prospects of success. | Struck out | Age | — |
| Age discrimination | Claim 2, direct age discrimination concerning a 9.45% pay rise for staff on SEO Grades compared with a 4.5% pay rise for the claimant, was withdrawn at the hearing and dismissed under Rule 51. | Withdrawn | Age | — |
Legal tests applied
16 references- Rule 38 Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2024
- Rule 51 Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2024
- HM Prison Service v Dolby two stage strike-out test
- Hasan v Tesco Stores Ltd
- Mbuisa v Cygnet Healthcare Ltd
- Anyanwu v South Bank Student Union
- Mechkarov v Citibank NA
- Rule 40 Tribunal Rules of Procedure 2024
- Hemdan v Ishmail
- Van Rensburg v Royal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames
- s13 Equality Act 2010
- s23 Equality Act 2010
- Madarassy v Nomura International
- Bahl v The Law Society
- Igen v Wong
- Hewage v Grampian Health Board
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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