Agarwal v Cardiff University (Redundancy)

An Employment Tribunal may identify decision-makers collectively where a redundancy decision results from a multi-stage, group process. It need not name every committee member or receive evidence from each member merely to permit examination of individual mental processes. Evidence from the committee chair may adequately explain the process.

An appeal tribunal will not interfere where the tribunal has adequately rejected an unsupported allegation that a redundancy process was manipulated. Nor is an error of law established by omitting peripheral evidence from reasons or by excluding purported expert evidence through a proportionate case-management decision.

The claimant, a clinical senior lecturer and consultant urological surgeon, was dismissed following the respondent university's Medic Forward restructuring process. The Employment Tribunal at Cardiff rejected her claims for automatic and ordinary unfair dismissal, race discrimination, harassment, victimisation and breach of contract in written reasons dated 27 April 2018.

She appealed on limited grounds permitted after a Rule 3(10) hearing. She contended that the Tribunal had failed to identify the decision-makers and investigate their mental processes, and had erred in its treatment of evidence from Dr Graves and Ms Santamaria. The central issue was whether those matters disclosed an error of law in the Tribunal's conclusion that the dismissal was a genuine and fair redundancy.

1. Appeal dismissed. The Employment Tribunal was entitled to find that the claimant was dismissed by reason of a genuine redundancy and that the dismissal was fair. Its reasons adequately explained that conclusion.

2. The redundancy decision arose from a multi-stage process involving group decisions. Although the Tribunal did not name every participant, it adequately identified the decision-makers. The committee chair and the appeal officer gave evidence. There was no rule requiring every panel member to give evidence so that each person's mental processes could be examined subjectively.

3. The Tribunal permissibly rejected the allegation that Professor Bligh had manipulated the process to secure the claimant's dismissal. It found no evidence either of manipulation or of his responsibility for it. The claimant's attempt to characterise the case as analogous to an “Iago” case under Royal Mail Group Ltd v Jhuti was therefore inapposite.

4. The Tribunal's failure to mention Dr Graves's evidence about another individual did not disclose an error of law. The evidence was of limited relevance and was, in any event, based on an erroneous assumption that the individual had been at risk of redundancy.

5. The exclusion of Ms Santamaria's evidence was a sensible and permissible case-management decision. She was not an expert on equality impact assessments, had no relevant factual evidence to give, and her wider evidence was insufficiently probative to justify the disproportionate consequences of admitting it.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal — dismissed the claimant's appeal against the dismissal of her claims.
• Employment Tribunal, Cardiff — rejected claims for automatic and ordinary unfair dismissal, direct race discrimination, harassment, victimisation and breach of contract. Written reasons were dated 27 April 2018.