Redundancy: Fair redundancy selection based on absence records

In deciding the fairness of a redundancy selection criterion based on employees' absence records, an industrial tribunal may consider whether the employer took account of the reasons for a particular employee's absence only as one of the factors to be considered in the circumstances of the case, and not as the conclusive factor, the EAT holds in Byrne v Castrol (UK) Ltd 5.11.96 EAT 429/96. In this case, an industrial tribunal was entitled to find that the employer acted reasonably by applying an absence selection criterion which was deliberately without reference to the reasons behind any particular absences, in order to maintain the objectivity of the selection process.