The claimant made a claim of age discrimination and/or race discrimination in relation to his failure to be appointed to the post of Betting Shop Manager with the respondent when it failed to shortlist him for interview. The claimant received no communication from the respondent until he received a ‘standard format’ letter signed by the General Manager.

Ultimately, the claims were dismissed but the tribunal made a point of commenting on the relationship between employers and their legal or human resources representatives who often, as in this case, draft the response to the tribunal. The representative here also drafted a reply to the claimant’s ‘race discrimination questionnaire’ which contained one composite reply to 31 questions and in reality gave ‘no specific reason’ for the claimant’s failure.

The tribunal was satisfied that there had been ‘little or no discussion’ between the representative and the General Manager of the respondent which effectively led to ‘non-replies’ to the specific questions posed. The failure by the respondent to provide a satisfactory reply to the questionnaire amounted to, in the tribunal’s view, an ‘evasive and/or equivocal reply’ because it did not provide the necessary information sought by the claimant.

Practical lessons

The tribunal considered whether, pursuant to Dattani v Chief Constable of West Mercia Police [2005] IRLR 327), an adverse influence could be drawn from the failure of the respondent to provide a satisfactory response to what were relevant questions from the claimant ‘focused on the recruitment exercise he had engaged in’.

Whilst it decided against doing so, the tribunal made clear that a composite answer to detailed questions contained in a questionnaire will rarely, if ever, satisfy the procedure. Given the significant involvement of the representative in drafting the reply for the approval of the General Manager, the tribunal decided against such an inference. However, it was noted that such questionnaires are part of the statutory process in connection with discrimination litigation and thus proper engagement between employer and representative is imperative.