United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal

APPEARANCES

 

For the Appellant	MR B BROWN (the Appellant in Person)
For the Respondent	MISS L CHUDLEIGH (of Counsel) Instructed by: Messrs Pothecary Barrett Solicitors Talbot House Talbot Court Grace Church Street London EC3V 0BS


 


JUDGE J R REID QC:

1. There is before the Employment Appeal Tribunal an appeal and a cross-appeal. The Respondents to the appeal The Methodist Council indicated that in the event of the appeal failing they do not propose to continue with their cross-appeal. The decision to which both parties took exception was a decision of the Employment Tribunal at London (North), held on 16 and 17 March 2000. The decision was sent to the parties on 5 May.
2. By that decision the Tribunal held that the Applicant had not been unlawfully discriminated against on the ground of his disability and against that finding there is no appeal. The Tribunal went on behold that the Applicant had been unfairly dismissed by the Respondent (against which decision the Methodist Council launched the cross-appeal) but went on to find that in the circumstances the Applicant, Mr Brown, was not entitled to any compensation. Against this finding he appeals. The background to the case is the retrenchment of the Methodist Church. Mr Brown was employed at grade 7 as an assistant accountant; he was working in the location known as Chester House, Muswell Hill. That place of work was closed and the work previously done there was moved to the Methodist Church House in Marylebone.
3. The result of that, which was part of an overall business strategy of the Methodist Council, was that certain redundancies were inevitable. One of those selected for redundancy was Mr Brown, the view of the Methodist Council being that he was in effect in a pool of one. The reason that he was in a pool of one was the method by which the Methodist Council conducted their business reorganisation doing it unit by unit as staged reorganisation. It was because the Tribunal formed the view that this operated unfairly that the Tribunal primarily found that Mr Brown was unfairly dismissed. The secondary basis on which they held that he was unfairly dismissed was that the Methodist Council had not been sufficiently pro-active in considering possible alternative work for him. Thirdly, the Tribunal held that the Methodist Council's attempts to be compassionate in the way in which they made Mr Brown redundant (resulting in him being found bits and pieces to do for some considerable time) in fact compounded the errors and added to the unreasonableness of the procedure which had been adopted. But the Tribunal then went on to say that having regard to the options open to the Methodist Council in the context of implementing their development plan and having heard evidence about the roles and the scope of duties to the individual employees affected by reorganisation which was starting to take place, the Tribunal had come to a unanimous conclusion that there was no prospect at all within the framework of the Applicant remaining in his post or any post with the Methodist Council.
4. Mr Brown says that that determination was wrong. He pointed to the fact that there were two other people on grade 7, however the Tribunal clearly considered those two persons. He also mentioned Ms Ashton, a couple of grades lower. The Tribunal does not in express terms spell out that had there been consideration of Mr Brown at the time for the post obtained by Ms Ashton. But the Tribunal held he would not have been retained in any event and she would have kept her post. It is clear to us when we read the totality of the decision that that was a finding of fact although it might have been spelt out with greater clarity. The Tribunal having had the advantage of hearing all the evidence, in a particular hearing from Mr Brown, took the view that there was no prospect of him being found any employment in the re-organised business and it may perhaps have been inappropriate sense of charity which made them keep their findings on that to a comparatively brief form. We are satisfied that there was no error of law in what the Tribunal found and that the reasons for which they made their finding that it was inevitable that Mr Brown would be made redundant are sufficiently apparent from the face of the decision.
5. The remaining point that Mr Brown took before us, was that he had made suggestions for work that he could do. Although he approached the nature of that work from a variety of angles, it came down in the end always to the creation of a systems development position in order to deal with a variety of gaps which he saw in the proposed new organisation. He wrote a paper to that effect, but a memo came back dismissing his suggestions. Of course by this time the overall development plan had been adopted and was being implemented and no such post as he was proposing for himself was rightly or wrongly thought by the Council to be necessary, nor was anyone ever employed so far as the evidence goes in such a post as Mr Brown envisaged.
6. In those circumstances this additional point does not give rise to any realistic suggestion that Mr Brown could have been redeployed rather than being made redundant, and in our judgment the decision to which the Employment Tribunal came is therefore unimpeachable. It is not for us to retry the case. We have to look and see whether the decision as a matter of law was one which can stand up. Though I have no doubt this is a considerable disappointment to Mr Brown, the view that we have come to is that there is no indication of any error of law at all in the decision to which the Employment Tribunal came in its assessment that it was inevitable that Mr Brown would not be found another post whatever method of selection for redundancy had been adopted. In those circumstances we dismiss the appeal. Since it has been indicated that if the appeal is dismissed the cross-appeal (which will then have no financial consequences) would not be proceeded with, we will also dismiss the cross-appeal.