United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	NO APPEARANCE BY OR REPRESENTATION ON BEHALF OF THE APPELLANT


 


JUDGE C SMITH QC: This is an application by Mrs Young, the Applicant before the Industrial Tribunal, for leave to proceed to a full hearing of an appeal against the decision of an Industrial Tribunal held at Middlesborough in March and April 1997, when the Industrial Tribunal held that Mrs Young had been unfairly dismissed on the grounds of redundancy due only to the absence of consultation but went on to hold that such consultation, had it taken place, would not have made any difference and would not have prevented her dismissal.

We have very carefully considered the grounds of appeal and the Notice of Appeal that is put forward on behalf of Mrs Young and we have also had the benefit of a handwritten statement from Mrs Young, which we have all looked at. She does not appear. She courteously informed the Employment Appeal Tribunal that she would not be appearing today but we have, of course, taken everything in those documents into account and we have reminded ourselves that it is only necessary for the Applicant to show that there is a reasonable ground of appeal on a point of law for her to be allowed to proceed to a full hearing.

It is in those circumstances that we have, of course, examined the decision of the Industrial Tribunal. The Industrial Tribunal gave Extended Reasons which we have considered. It was a full Tribunal, of course, and it was a unanimous decision.

The Industrial Tribunal first accurately rehearsed the facts at paragraphs 2 - 6 of its decision. The facts were, in our judgment, carefully and accurately found by the Tribunal and reference should be made to their findings for the details of the matter. In summary, and it is only a summary, the Applicant had started with the Respondent company, Lookers of Billingham, a garage company, in 1992 on the petrol forecourt until she became Sales Administrator in June 1996. She did not, on the findings of the Tribunal, unfortunately, perhaps due to inexperience, perform satisfactorily in that job. Then came the blow, as the Tribunal described it when "the axe came down" in the sense that the garage lost the very valuable Renault franchise which created a very serious redundancy situation, as is clearly set out by the Industrial Tribunal. Indeed, almost 50% of the staff had to be made redundant.

There followed a meeting on 4 October, when warning of redundancy was given by Mr Wilkinson, the Director in charge of these matters, and by 10 October 1996 the Applicant had been told that she would have to be made redundant. There was no issue before the Tribunal that this was a redundancy situation, it plainly was.

The Industrial Tribunal at paragraph 4 carefully listed the relevant clerical staff numbering six in all, of whom three, including the Applicant, were made redundant. They noted, as was the fact, that there had been a selection process in relation to the new post of Sales Administrator and Purchase Ledger Clerk and they noted that the Respondents created a pool of just the Applicant and Ruth Collinson in competition for that new post and that, on their skills assessment, which the Tribunal appeared to have found was properly carried out, Ruth Collinson comfortably outscored the Applicant and obtained the post.

The Applicant's case before the Tribunal was to the effect that Jan Taylor, the third of the Sales Administrators, should have been included in the pool and that it was unfair in some way that she obtained the post of part-time switchboard operator. In our judgment the Industrial Tribunal dealt with this matter properly in paragraph 6 of their Extended Reasons. In particular, they found as a fact that, although Miss Taylor had only a short length of service, she had been a Credit Controller at another garage and was good at the switchboard, at which the Applicant had no experience, and we do notice that the Applicant accepts that she did not have any experience at operating the switchboard.

Looking at the matter as carefully as we can, in our judgment the Industrial Tribunal here looked at all relevant matters and were entitled to reach the conclusions of fact which they did. Ultimately, it was a matter for the Industrial Tribunal to decide whether consultation would have made any difference. That is essentially a question of fact for the Industrial Tribunal to decide and they correctly identified that issue as being one for their determination. They were, in our judgment, fully entitled to find that the Respondents would still have offered Miss Taylor the job of switchboard operator, however properly and fully they had consulted with the Applicant.

We should say that, looking at the matter in the round, the Respondents here appear to have complied with the requirements relating to an unfortunate redundancy situation like this, save for the one respect found against them by the Industrial Tribunal relating to the lack of consultation, but, in our judgment, here again the Industrial Tribunal were fully entitled to find that, even if there had been consultation, at the end of the day it must be for the Respondents to decide who is a suitable applicant for alternative employment and the result would have been that Miss Taylor would have got the job and not the Applicant. For those reasons this application must be dismissed.

Accordingly, for those reasons, although we have some sympathy with the position in which the Applicant found herself, we cannot find any error of law in this decision and the application accordingly must be dismissed.