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Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Industrial Tribunals Northern Ireland Decisions >> Bruce v Diamond Systems [2010] NIIT 01081_10IT (10 February 2011) URL: http://www.bailii.org/nie/cases/NIIT/2011/01081_10IT.html Cite as: [2010] NIIT 01081_10IT, [2010] NIIT 1081_10IT |
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THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS
CASE REF: 1081/10
CLAIMANT: Lee Bruce
RESPONDENT: Diamond Systems
DECISION
The unanimous decision of the tribunal is that the claimant was not unfairly selected for redundancy and was consequently not unfairly dismissed. He was however entitled to the sum of £90.56 unpaid holiday pay for the period of his employment during the 2010 holiday year.
Constitution of Tribunal:
Chairman: Mr Patrick Cross
Panel Members: Mr Frank Murtagh
Ms Liz May
Appearances:
The claimant appeared in person and was not represented.
The respondent appeared through Ms A Bennett the Finance Director of the respondent and was not represented.
Findings of Fact
1. The claimant who was employed as an engineer in the respondent’s business in the fire alarm, security and CCTV surveillance business was employed from 21 July 2008.
2. During the autumn of 2009 the management of the respondent noticed a downturn in business, particularly in the fire alarm department. Although all the engineers were employed to repair any of the systems that were dealt with by the respondent company, the claimant had his greatest skill and experience in the fire alarm field.
3. As a result of this downturn in business the respondent management team met on
4 November 2009 to consider what action should be taken. This team consisted of the Managing Director Steve Snodden, Tom Snodden and the finance director, Angela Bennett, (then called the company accountant). It was decided that there were too many engineers for the present requirement and that voluntary redundancy might be suggested to the engineers. This proposal was put to a meeting of the engineers. As a consequence of this meeting the managing director wrote a letter to the engineering staff warning of the downturn in work and looking for voluntary redundancies.
4. There were no applications for voluntary redundancy, so the management team held another meeting on 19 November, at which a decision was made, to suggest to the engineers that they either took a pay cut or worked a four day week. At a meeting held with the engineers a letter to that effect was handed out. The claimant was unable to attend that meeting but did get the letter. At the meeting it was agreed that all the engineers elected for the four day week and this was implemented by management and continued until after Christmas. The claimant was content with the reduction in days, although he did query the allocation of particular days to him which he considered unfair. He did not however press this point to a grievance.
5. On 5 January 2010, a further meeting was held by the management team, to reconsider the possibility of making redundancies. The team had, during the previous few weeks, been anticipating that such a course would become necessary and had carried out an exercise to select who the possible candidates for redundancy would be. This process is described in the next paragraphs, but at the meeting of 5 January the decision to make the claimant redundant was taken.
6. Earlier in the year the respondent had commenced the practice of recording an “Engineers Skills Matrix”, to keep a record of the skills of the engineers in the various systems that were installed and maintained by the company. This matrix was updated regularly and the copy provided for the tribunal was the one compiled in early November 2009. The matrix named all the engineers including the apprentices. All the skills were scored between 1and 4, and the totals added. The claimant in the November matrix scored 22 which was by far the lowest score of the engineers and only just ahead of the apprentices.
7. When the respondent decided to proceed on the redundancy course it set up a selection process. All the engineers, including the apprentices, were included in this process. The management team allotted scores between 1 and 10 for various headings. These were, skills level, experience, capability, work performance, quality of work, conduct and qualifications. As would be expected, from the matrix the scores of the claimant in the skills level, capability and quality of work were low. He also scored badly on conduct and qualification. The claimant’s total score was the lowest of the group and consequently he was declared redundant.
8. The respondent wrote to the claimant on 5 January 2010, he was given a copy of the scores that related to him in the selection process described above. He was asked to attend a meeting on 8 January and warned that he could be made redundant. The claimant was unwell and emailed to the respondent to that effect. A second meeting was arranged for 14 January, the following week. An email was sent to the claimant by Ms Bennett on 11 January, informing him of these arrangements and asking him to attend or at least send a written response. The day before Ms Bennett’s email, on the 10th, the claimant had returned his car to the respondent.
9. The claimant failed to attend that meeting or submit any written response, or give a reason for his absence. The only communication received by the respondent was a sick line from the claimant’s doctor giving a further 2 weeks sick leave from 12 January. The meeting proceeded in his absence and the claimant was declared redundant. After the meeting a letter to that effect was sent to him telling him that he could appeal the decision. The claimant did not appeal.
The Law
10. Article 130 of The Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996, (“the 1996 Order”), states that it is for the employer to show that the reason for the dismissal of an employee is for an allowable reason, as set out in the Article. One of the allowable reasons is that the employee was redundant. The tribunal having been informed that the reason for the dismissal is that of redundancy, must consider if the respondent carried out a fair selection process to choose the employee to be made redundant. The employer must decide on a pool of employees in his workforce, out of which number the person to be dismissed must be selected. Once the pool is established proper and fair methods must be used to compare the employees in the pool, to make an objective choice of the one to be selected for redundancy.
Decision of the Tribunal
11. In this case the respondent having decided that there was no alternative, in the situation in which the company found itself, than to make one engineer redundant, formed a pool of all the engineers in the company. The tribunal find that this was a fair decision. The respondent then went through an exercise of scoring all the employees in the pool for their skills and conduct. In this exercise the respondent was able to use the matrix referred to above and this, in the opinion of the tribunal resulted in an objective approach being taken to the selection of the employee to be made redundant.
12. The tribunal hold that the procedure to select the person to be made redundant was fair in its inception and was conducted in a fair manner. The fact that the claimant was the person to be dismissed was arrived at fairly and he was given the opportunity to meet the respondent or to send a written response, or to appeal the decision of the respondent, none of which he availed himself of. The tribunal hold that the dismissal was fair and that the claimant’s claim be dismissed.
13. So far as the claimant’s claim for unpaid holiday pay is concerned the tribunal find that the respondent did not pay him holiday pay for the two weeks that he was employed by the respondent, during the 2010 holiday year from 1 January to 21 January when his notice expired. This amounts to 1.5 days pay at £60.37 per day, a total of £90.56. The tribunal award this sum to the claimant.
14. This is a relevant decision for the purposes of the Industrial Tribunals (Interest) Order (Northern Ireland) 1990.
Chairman:
Date and place of hearing: 10 January 2011, Belfast
Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties:
