| SPOTLIGHT |
A Welsh council has lost an appeal over a ruling that it unfairly dismissed a group of claimants following the closure of the school where they worked and who were unsuccessful in applying for positions at a new school that opened at the same location.
The Employment Tribunal had held that the dismissals were unfair because of the failure to provide the claimants with a right of appeal, the absence of consultation and because of the manner in which they were required to "apply for their own jobs".
Gwynedd Council, the respondent local authority, appealed on the grounds that the Tribunal had erred in its approach to the assessment of fairness under s.98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 in that it had treated guidelines as to what an employer should do in a redundancy dismissal as inflexible legal requirements; and had failed to take account of the particular limitations on the respondent's role in relation to recruitment at a maintained school.
In Gwynedd Council v Shelley Barratt & Anor (REDUNDANCY) [2020] UKEAT 0206_18_0306 the Employment Appeal Tribunal dismissed the council’s appeal, finding that the Tribunal had not erred in its approach to fairness.
“Whilst some parts of the Tribunal's judgment might be indicative of a rigid approach, a fair reading of the whole judgment reveals that it did not treat guideline cases as laying down mandatory requirements that had to be applied in every case,” the EAT said.
“Whether or not the Respondent acted fairly in applying that process in the circumstances of this case was to be judged by an application of s98(4) of the 1996 Act and that is what the Tribunal did. In doing so, it did not err in its understanding of the relationship between the Respondent and the Governing Bodies of the schools as set out in the relevant regulations.”
