United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellants	MR K A CURL (Representative) PPC Ltd Godwin House George Street Huntingdon Cambridgeshire PE18 6BU


 


JUDGE BYRT QC: This is an ex parte hearing in an appeal from a decision of the Industrial Tribunal sitting at Bury St Edmunds in October 1996. On that occasion it held that Mr Clark, the applicant, had been unfairly dismissed and he was awarded compensation of £1,552.80 which was reduced on review to £1,094.61. The employers now appeal.

The facts are quite shortly stated. The respondents are a manufacturing company and part of their organisation is the Small Works section. Owing to the pressures for increased and improved efficiency, discussions took place amongst the management as to the closure of the Small Works section. The Industrial Tribunal found that work of a particular kind in the section had diminished which meant that there was a requirement for less employees. As a result, they found that there was a potential redundancy situation. The issue before the tribunal was whether the procedures leading to the redundancy were fair and reasonable.

The employees in that section, including the applicant, were informed on 1st April 1996 that the management was minded to close the section. They sought voluntary redundancies and indicated that they wished to have answers by 9th April 1996, a date only the some of nine days hence, in the midst of which Easter intervened.

On 9th April the management gave their formal decision that the section was to be closed and the workers were given notice amounting to some 12 weeks. During that period, there were two subsequent consultative meetings, namely on 23rd April and 5th June. On 2nd July Mr Clark left in accordance with the notice that had been given to him, no alternative employment having been found for him.

On those findings, the Industrial Tribunal held that there was a redundancy situation. Thereafter, they considered the reasonableness of the respondents' procedures. The tribunal considered Williams v Compair Maxim; they applied the case of R v British Coal Corporation and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry Ex parte Price and Others. In considering what was reasonable and fair consultation, they applied passages in the latter case, contained in the judgment of Glidewell LJ in which he said that fair consultation means consultation when the proposals are still at the formative stage and when adequate information and time is available in which to respond to consultation. They found that the consultation which had taken place prior to 9th April was effectively at a time when the decision had already been made and the door shut. They came to a finding that the dismissal was unfair for lack of meaningful consultation. That was a finding which, in our judgment, amounts to a finding of fact. It is not for us to decide as to whether they were right in coming to that decision. It is a question whether it was within that broad band of decisions it was reasonable for them to make. In our judgment, there is no arguable point of law to the contrary..

The question then is one of compensation. The Industrial Tribunal allowed compensation based upon an eight week period, and did so on the basis that consultation ran concurrent with the notice, and in particular the fact that, even according to the employers own evidence, the last date of consultation was 5th June. They therefore selected the eight week period.

Mr Curl, who has appeared on behalf of the appellants in this case, says that the issue here is of whether the period of consultation was reasonable. He referred to the case of Mining Supplies (Longwall) Ltd v Baker [1988] IRLR 417 and drew our attention to the judgment of the President, Wood J. There he said that what is reasonable depends on the facts of each case. Whilst this would ordinarily seem a matter for the Industrial Tribunal to come to a conclusion about it, we think there is a matter here which should go forward to a full hearing so as to enable the Employment Appeal Tribunal to consider whether, in the light of authority, the allowance of eight weeks compensation was outwith the band of reasonableness. On that basis alone, we allow this case to go forward to a full hearing.