The claimant had been the manager responsible for an education support project. The respondent organisation experienced significant difficulty in securing funding and had made various efforts to secure alternative funding to make up the shortfall it suffered. At the same time, unsuccessful applications had been made for another project and relevant staff had been made redundant yet the claimant remained in employment, even though funding had not been fully secured for the education support project. Eventually the claimant was made redundant with the reason of lack of funding cited as the reason.

The claimant was kept informed of the problems throughout but alleged that the respondent had not made sufficient efforts to pursue certain funding avenues; an argument the tribunal rejected. The claimant’s argument that she had been selected for redundancy based on a grievance she made about a fellow employee was rejected by the tribunal. This decision to dismiss was deemed technically unfair because of a failure to comply with the statutory procedures but was substantively fair as it was one which a reasonable employer had been entitled to take.

Practical Lessons

This was a case where the respondent did everything right in terms of consulting with the claimant repeatedly and considering alternative sources of funding to keep positions open. However, the actual conduct of the redundancy process was described by the tribunal as ‘amateurish’, with the claimant never formally informed of the reason to dismiss on grounds of redundancy. The right to appeal was also never communicated and even when the claimant contacted the respondent raising concerns about her selection this was treated as a grievance rather than as an appeal.

The right to an appeal is a necessary step in the statutory dismissal procedure yet while the analogous provision has been repealed in Great Britain, it remains in place in Northern Ireland.  The respondent here took its eye off the ball with respect to its dismissal procedure duties but it demonstrates how an otherwise diligent employer can be found have (technically) unfairly dismissed an employee, even where their conduct has been otherwise exemplary.

Although awarded no compensation, due to the tribunal offsetting an over-payment received by the claimant, paragraphs 72-80 include some interesting issues relating to how the tribunal calculated compensation, including sums for travelling expenses and loss of statutory rights.