United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR N LEVY Free Representation Unit Fourth Floor Peer House 8 - 14 Verulam Street London WC1X 8LZ
For the Respondents	MS J WATTS Assistant Principal Cambridge Regional College of Further Education King's Hedges Road Cambridge CB4 2QT


 


MR JUSTICE HOLLAND: By an IT1 of 27 November 1997 Mr Bradford initiated a complaint against his former employers, the Cambridge Regional College of Further Education, alleging breach of contract and redundancy.

In the event the matter came before a Chairman, Mr Rosser, sitting as an Industrial Tribunal at Bury St Edmunds on 17 March 1998. He decided that there was no breach of contract of employment by the College and thus no further payment was due to the Applicant. His application was dismissed. He appeals against that decision and today he has had the advantage of representation by Mr Levy.

The short facts giving rise to the matter are as follows. By way of a letter of 23 June 1997 the College mooted for general consideration certain prospects for redundancy. In the event Mr Bradford, a lecturer at the College, evinced an interest in that form of termination for his contract. Thus it is that he had conversations with Dorothy Bowers, the College's acting Personnel Manager. Those conversations produced an exchange of letters. By her letter dated 30 June 1997 Mrs Bowers wrote to him in these terms:

"Dear Robin

Further to our conversation the other day please find a detailed estimate as requested. After talking to the TPA I am confirming that any redundancy payment is between the employer and employee and should not affect your pension."

There then follows in the body of the letter what is described as "Statement of Redundancy Pay" and it terminates with the figure £23,823.16, a figure that includes a sum of £19,830 seemingly by way of salary in lieu of notice, that is a figure representing a year's salary. On the same day Mr Bradford wrote to her. The letter is before us. It reads, so far as material:

"Following our conversations of last week I should like to apply for redundancy under the terms you mentioned, namely a years salary plus a lump sum, to take effect from 31 August '97. I should also like to apply for my pension and associated lump sum due to me from my 7 years at CRC to be paid as from 1st September."

Before that application was going to be dealt with there were further developments and those developments were explained to Mr Bradford by way of a letter of 14 July 1997 from the Principal. That intimated that there had now been discussions between the College management and the relevant Unions about the redundancy problem and that, in its turn, had promoted a different offer for voluntary redundancy. The matter was set out thus:

"The following offer for voluntary redundancy has been agreed after consultation between the recognised unions and College management:

A redundancy lump sum based on current actual salary, compensation equivalent to six months gross pay or, for those with an entitlement to 12 months notice, compensation equivalent to 12 months net salary, which for the purposes of calculation will be 75% of gross salary per annum.

Anyone who might be interested in voluntary severance should register their interest by noon on Friday 15 August 1997 with the Personnel office."

We gather, indeed it is implicit in this whole matter, that were those terms to be applied to Mr Bradford's situation it would result in a sum less than that detailed in the earlier letter coming due to him.

As the Tribunal found, there were discussions between Mr Bradford and the College reflecting this revised view of what was due on redundancy. It seems further, that he was making his stance clear, namely that all that was very well but it did not apply to him, having regard to the earlier correspondence. There matters rested until, by a letter of 18 August 1997, Mrs Bowers wrote to him in these terms, so far as is material:

"Dear Robin:

Further to your application regarding voluntary redundancy, I can confirm that it has been accepted. Therefore your last day of employment will be 31 August 1997."

Then follow certain practical details which do not bear upon the issue before us. In the result the Applicant did leave his employment as redundant on that day, but only received the sum reflecting the revised approach to redundancy agreed with the Union. His case is that he has a contractual entitlement to the greater sum, that contractual entitlement reflecting a proper analysis of this correspondence.

The College's response is that the correspondence can only be read in conjunction with what had passed between the College and Mr Bradford orally and, in particular, it can only be read by reference to the known stance of the College, namely that which had been agreed with the Unions was to govern the matter.

For our part we find ourselves driven to the view that this appeal has to be allowed. The reason for this reflects basic principles of contract law. As was intimated in the course of argument, the critical passage in this correspondence lies in the first sentence of the letter of 18 August 1997. It is plain from that that in terms of contractual concepts the College was accepting an offer so as to make a contract. That then begs the question as to what offer it was accepting. It defines the offer as "your application regarding voluntary redundancy" and it appears to be common ground that there is only one application for voluntary redundancy and that is the application of 30 June 1997. That therefore has to be that which is accepted in order to form a contract and thus it is that, in our judgment, the Appellant's contentions are plainly correct as a matter of law.

The irony of the situation appears to us to be this. That, having regard to the discussions that passed between the College and Mr Bradford, the appropriate response in hindsight would have been to reject the application, but to indicate a basis upon which a fresh application, if mounted, might be considered favourably. Unhappily, that was not done (that is unhappily, from the College's point of view) and thus it is that we, applying the law as it is to the facts as they are can only arrive at the conclusion that we have indicated.

We have, of course, taken into account the conversations that had taken place in the meantime with Mr Bradford which made clear the change of the College's position, but as Mr Levy pointed out those conversations also served to show that Mr Bradford had not changed his position. Thus it is that, so far from indicating that his application had changed, if they have any relevance (which we doubt as a matter of strict law) then they serve to show that the application he was making was that set out in his letter and there never had been any subsequent variation.

Turning then to the way we disposed of this matter, we allow the appeal. We would, I think, formally direct a remedies hearing, but we would assume that there is not the slightest difficulty at all in discerning the sum that is due to him. It is presumably the difference between £23,823.16 and that which has been paid.