The Employment Appeal Tribunal has held that the employment tribunal was wrong to find that the absence of a system of moderating two sets of redundancy scores following a TUPE transfer rendered the selection process unfair.
This case serves as a warning to employers always to calculate redundancy selection scores carefully, as mistakes can render a dismissal unfair even if they are identified only after the employee's appeal.
A 62-year-old worker who was made redundant was awarded over £27,000 for age discrimination and unfair dismissal, in a stark warning for employers that allow their redundancy selection procedure to be tainted by age bias.
This case deals with a common issue in redundancy situations: the discounting of disability-related absences when scoring against a "sickness absence" criterion.
In Rolls-Royce plc v Unite [2009] EWCA Civ 387 CA, the Court of Appeal held that a redundancy selection matrix set out in a 2003 collective agreement was not automatically rendered unlawful following the implementation of the age discrimination legislation in 2006.
In Rolls-Royce v Unite [2008] EWHC 2420 HC, the High Court held that two collective agreements that set out an approach to redundancy giving points for length of service in the selection process were lawful under the age discrimination legislation.