United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	IN PERSON


 


JUDGE H J BYRT QC: This is an ex-parte hearing in the context of an appeal against the decision of an Industrial Tribunal sitting at London (South). The decision was promulgated in April 1997, whereby they held that the Applicant, now the Appellant, had not been unfairly dismissed.

The Appellant was employed by the Respondents as a Commercial Services Manager. He was so employed over a considerable period of time from 1983 till the termination of that employment in November 1995.

The Respondents' case was that he was dismissed by reason of redundancy. The issue before the Industrial Tribunal was whether the Respondents had complied with all the statutory requirements of Section 139 and Section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996.

The facts shortly, as found by the Tribunal after an extensive hearing, are that the principal task the Appellant had to fulfil, was the provision for an extensive company, (I believe extending over something like eight sites) of legal services and also of commercial services and advice for various Contract Officers in the Company. He undertook this job from a central office and it appears that, prior to a restructuring of the Company organisation which took place in 1995, he was the linchpin for the provision of these services. He was the only person with that role.

The Respondents' re-structuring involved shifting some 700 employees of the Company to a division of GEC Marconi and, as a result of that restructuring as the Tribunal found, the Appellant's role was considerably reduced or ceased altogether. In fact the services he provided were now dispersed between five of the eight sites I have already referred to. The Tribunal found that the restructuring exercise was a genuine reorganisation and that is something which the Appellant, Mr Levy quite frankly accepts too.

The evidence, put forward by management, was that the Appellant's position could be dispensed with because, to use a phrase used in evidence, "he was acting as a postbox between the Commercial Officers" around the country who were in direct contact with the customers, and the Legal Department at GEC Marconi headquarters at Stanmore.

The Industrial Tribunal found that the services of the Commercial Services Manager did significantly diminish or cease as a result of the restructuring and that, as a result, his role could be dispensed with. It also found that the role fulfilled by the Appellant was in fact a unique one. In consequence the Industrial Tribunal took the view that it was reasonable he, alone, should be selected for redundancy.

The Appellant's case was that management should have, considered a wider pool for selection; alternatively, when considering alternative employment for him, they should have taken into account a number of other posts which included those of a Contracts Manager or an Assistant Contracts Manager.

Here again, there was a substantial body of evidence, according to the Industrial Tribunal's Decision. The Respondents took the view that this Appellant did not have the negotiating skill required to fulfil the role of a Contracts Manager, where he would have been face to face with outside parties in negotiation. The Tribunal accepts that view and its sequelae, namely that the pool for selection could not be widened and furthermore that those were jobs which could not be offered to the Appellant as alternative employments.

We think it comes through abundantly clearly from the Tribunal's Reasons that in no way were they impugning the ability of the Appellant to discharge his job as a Commercial Services Manager. That had a distinct role dealing with the Contracting Officers of the Company and not with outside customers. It was the lack of communication skills which the Tribunal accepted the Appellant was lacking. That was the determinate factor as to whether he should be offered these alternative jobs. I mention that at some length, because the Appellant, in advancing his arguments today, has on a number of occasions stressed that he was competent at his job, and had a substantial number of documents which demonstrated the appreciation of the Company, its Managing Director and so on. These were all drawn to the attention of the Industrial Tribunal and I have absolutely no doubt that in making their comments as they do, the Tribunal were in no way casting aspersions on the way he discharged his duty before the restructuring.

Then there is the consultation process. This took place in August 1995 on a couple of occasions, namely on 4 August and 22 August. What the Appellant says is that, if it was part of the Respondents' case that his position was unique and that was going to cause problems for increasing the width of the pool or the size of the pool from which redundancies had to be selected, this should have been mentioned to him then. He also says that if his lack of ability to fulfil other outside alternative roles was a factor which was going to cause them problems, they ought to have raised it with him at that stage and he says they did not.

One has to balance this picture against that which is painted by the Industrial Tribunal where they say that unhappily, and undoubtedly due to the stress that he was subjected to at the time, the Appellant adopted a confrontational and non-cooperative approach at those consultation meetings. The Industrial Tribunal came to a finding that the lack of success of that consultation process was not due to the Respondents, but was in some way attributable to the Appellant himself.

Then on 22 August, that is the date of the last consultation meeting, the Respondents served a Redundancy Notice on the Appellant with an effective date of termination on 21 November. Between those two dates it appears, so the Industrial Tribunal found, that the Appellant was offered some job which in outline at least matched the job he had been doing, namely that as a Senior Contracts Officer. Mr Levy did not take up that offer. He did not do so because it entailed his moving outside the Respondent Company. At that time he was still intent on getting a job within the Respondent Company. He did not wish to leave them and that was a reason he says, he did not take up that particular job.

In any event, having come to those findings, it is plain to us that the Industrial Tribunal asked the right and appropriate questions at each stage, as required by Section 139 and Section 98. Of course, not all the evidence they took into account is set out in their Decision. This does cause Mr Levy, the Appellant, some distress because he says that certain parts of the evidence he laid before the Tribunal are not even mentioned in the reasons. Mr Levy has to appreciate the difficulty of an Industrial Tribunal who have been listening to evidence for four days. In coming to their decision, they can only refer to the matters they deemed relevant and significant to the points on which they are required to make findings.

We have considered the submissions made by the Appellant with great care. We would like to pay tribute to the courtesy, the clarity, and articularity with which he has addressed this Tribunal, but at the end of the day we do not see any point of law raised here which would permit us to allow this case to go through to a full hearing. Were we in some way to indulge him in this respect, we would only be prolonging the distress he obviously has felt about this matter without improving his chance of success.

Accordingly, our decision is that we must dismiss this appeal.