United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR S GORTON (of Counsel) Messrs Lees Lloyd Whitley Solicitors Castle Chambers 43 Castle Street Liverpool L2 9TL


 


JUDGE BYRT QC: This is a preliminary hearing on an appeal against an Industrial Tribunal's decision sitting at Nottingham on 23 April 1996. It is a case under the Sex Discrimination Act relating to a woman prison officer who went away to start a family and thereafter required to come back into part-time service with the Prison Service.

The Industrial Tribunal who considered this matter, dealt with it on the comparatively narrow basis namely, that the prison governor, who had to consider this request, had to deal with it in the context of the limited budget that he had at his disposal, and the various rules which governed recruitment of staff, taking into account the need to retain the goodwill of the Prison Officers Association attached to his particular prison.

The point argued before us by Mr Gorton on behalf of the Appellant is that the Industrial Tribunal should have approached this case on a much wider canvas, taking into account at large the resources available to the Prison Service, and considered whether anything could have been done for this Appellant in terms of part-time employment, having regard to the wide resources at its disposal.

We are told that there is no authority covering the proper approach the Industrial Tribunal should adopt in a situation of this sort. As a result we have decided that leave should be given to the Appellant to proceed with this appeal to a full hearing. However, in saying that, we would not wish to give the Appellant any undue encouragement towards thinking she is necessarily going to succeed in the appeal but there is a point of principle here, which we think should be considered