United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	Ms Sarah Moor (OF COUNSEL) Messrs Thompsons Solicitors Congress House Great Russell Street London WC1B 3LW


 


JUDGE COLLINS:

1. This is the preliminary hearing of an appeal against the decision of an employment tribunal sitting at Stratford whose extended reasons were promulgated on 7 October 1999. The tribunal held that the appellant was unfairly dismissed and awarded her compensation of £1,144.68. It was not in dispute that the appellant was dismissed by reason of redundancy but the tribunal held that she was unfairly dismissed because there had been a failure to consult with her. But they also decided that consultation would have made no difference and for that reason they awarded her a compensatory award of one month's pay only, which in their view would have covered any additional time taken up by any necessary consultation.
2. Therefore this appeal is limited to the question of compensation. It is the appellant's case that the tribunal was wrong in holding that the compensation should be limited to one month to enable a proper consultation to have been carried out. She is now 44 years old and between 11 August 1995 and 3 February 1999 was an occupational therapist working 18 hours a week and earning just £18,000 per annum at one of the respondents' residential homes. The respondents apparently have about 60 such homes and although we do not have any evidence on the point we are told by Mr Bradley who is the full time union representative in the area that about 10 are within reach of the appellant's home. It was disturbing to read from the tribunal's reasons that the question of dismissing the appellant and replacing her by a mental nurse in order to save money was discussed by the respondents as early as September 1998 but not mentioned to the appellant until the following February.
3. The tribunal found as a fact that between September 1998 and the eventual dismissal of the appellant the only attempt made to find her alternative employment within the respondents' substantial organisation was to make one telephone call to another home. We turn now to see how the tribunal dealt with this point. In paragraph 11 they say:

"The Respondent runs a number of clinics and Ms Truman did contact the Manager of another Home within the group to see if it had a suitable vacancy for Mrs Knott. It did not."

The point is not taken up again until paragraph 21 of their reasons which they conclude by saying:

."We do not believe there was a real possibility of there being such a post available at that time."

(That is a post as an occupational therapist.)

4. The background to the case was that at this clinic the respondents had decided because of the change in the nature of the patients who were being admitted that they needed to spend more money on mental nurses; the occupational therapy services could be contracted out as and when required. The evidence before the tribunal was that in fact no occupational therapy had been contracted out since Mrs Knott had left; there was no challenge to the basic proposition that she had been dismissed by reason of redundancy. However, there is no indication that there was any evidence that the reasons which justified getting rid of an occupational therapist at this particular home obtained in the other homes which were within reach of Mrs Knott. It seems to us reasonably arguable that there was no evidence on which the tribunal could properly have concluded that there was no real possibility of there being a post of occupational therapist for her elsewhere within the organisation.
5. In those circumstances, it seems to us reasonably arguable that the tribunal's decision that consultation would have made no difference was wrong and that consultation might have enabled her to take part in a process of looking for alternative suitable employment elsewhere in the organisation, which may or may not have been successful.