Wrexham Golf Club Co Ltd v Ingham

In a redundancy dismissal, Employment Rights Act 1996, section 98(4), requires the tribunal to decide whether the employer acted within the range of reasonable responses when identifying the employee at risk. There is no legal requirement to create a selection pool. An employer may reasonably select one employee where there is good reason to do so, even without developing or considering a wider pool.

The tribunal must not treat an employer's failure to consider a pool as automatically making the dismissal unfair. It must assess the reasonableness of that decision in the circumstances, including the nature of the role selected.

The employer golf club decided, in order to reduce costs, that its resident club steward role should cease. It consulted the employee holding that role, dismissed him for redundancy, and rejected his internal appeal.

The Employment Tribunal held the dismissal unfair. Its principal reason was that the club had given no consideration to a redundancy selection pool, despite overlap between some of the steward's work and that of bar staff. It also criticised aspects of consultation and the internal procedure.

The club appealed. The central issue was whether the tribunal had applied the statutory range-of-reasonable-responses test when deciding that the club could not focus on the steward's discrete role without considering a wider pool.

1. Appeal allowed. The Employment Tribunal erred in law in its approach to selection for redundancy and its unfair-dismissal decision could not stand.

2. Under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the question was whether it was reasonable for the club to focus on the club steward as the employee at risk once it had decided that the steward role would cease. The statutory test required an assessment of the range of reasonable responses, not an automatic finding of unfairness because no wider pool had been considered.

3. There is no rule that an employer must establish a pool. A single employee may reasonably be selected for redundancy where the employer has good reason. Although the steward's duties overlapped to some extent with those of bar staff, the role was discrete. On its face, it could fall within the range of reasonable responses to focus on its holder. The tribunal did not explain why that course was unreasonable.

4. Taymech Ltd v Ryan did not impose a statutory-style requirement that an employer always consider a pool. Its guidance remained that pool definition is primarily for the employer, subject to scrutiny of whether it genuinely addressed the issue in the circumstances.

5. The tribunal's consultation findings were not perverse. However, they were substantially connected to its erroneous pool reasoning. The Appeal Tribunal could not safely disentangle the findings or determine for itself whether the dismissal was fair or unfair.

6. The case was remitted for a fresh hearing before a differently constituted tribunal. The new tribunal was to consider afresh whether, under section 98(4), it was within the range of reasonable responses to identify the club steward alone as at risk without developing a pool.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: allowed the employer's appeal and remitted the unfair-dismissal claim for a fresh hearing before a differently constituted tribunal: [2012] UKEAT 0190_12_1007.
• Employment Tribunal, Prestatyn: judgment dated 21 December 2011 upheld the employee's claim of unfair dismissal.