The claimant was employed by the respondent as a Security Guard. The letter of dismissal set out the matter of concern that whilst working on site of a client the claimant permitted mail addressed to an ex-employee of that client to leave the premises. However, the principal reason for the dismissal was the refusal to accept the respondent’s offer of alternative work pursuant to his removal from the site. 

The respondent wrote to the claimant about the allegation of misconduct, but the tribunal held that there was a failure to comply with Step 1 of The Statutory Dismissal and Disciplinary Procedures (DDP). The reason was based on a failure to set out in writing the circumstances surrounding ‘some other substantial reason’ which would have lead the respondent to contemplate dismissal. This amounted to a failure to comply with the minimum statutory dismissal procedures which made the dismissal automatically unfair. 

Practical lessons

The employer here attempted to offer the claimant an alternative position and also made efforts to convince its client to reinstate him. However, crucially, when informing the claimant about the alleged misconduct it failed to specifically set out in writing the reasons that dismissal was being contemplated. 

The tribunal emphasised the ‘specific correspondence’ required by the DDP and notwithstanding the cooperative nature of the respondent, it did not comply with the statutory requirement. It is also important that the notes of the meetings held prior to the letter being sent did not refer either to termination of employment. Employers considering dismissal must be careful that the content of such meetings aligns with the content of the statement of grounds for action in the letter to the employee.