Ms P Piredda v General Optical Council: 2200170/2024

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 2200170/2024

Between

Ms P PireddaClaimant

General Optical CouncilRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Davidson

Mr P Jones (instructed by Counsel) for claimant

Mr A Ohringer (instructed by Counsel) for respondent

Date 12 June 2025

JUDGMENT

The claimant’s claims for detriment and for automatic unfair dismissal following protected disclosures fail and are hereby dismissed.

REASONS

[1]The liability issues for the hearing were set out by EJ Goodman at a case management hearing on 2 July 2024.

[1]Unfair dismissal1.1 Was the claimant dismissed?

1.2 Was the reason or principal reason for dismissal that the claimant made a protected disclosure etc? If so, the claimant will be regarded as unfairly dismissed.

[2]Protected disclosure2.1 Did the claimant make one or more qualifying disclosures as defined in section 43B of the Employment Rights Act 1996? The Tribunal will decide:2.1.1 What did the claimant say or write? When? To whom? The claimant says she made disclosures on these occasions:

2.1.2 Did she disclose information?

2.1.3 Did she believe the disclosure of information was made in the public interest?

2.1.4 Was that belief reasonable?

2.1.5 Did she believe it tended to show that:2.1.5.1 a criminal offence had been, was being or was likely to be committed; the claimant refers to the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in the use of data for an unauthorised purpose and unauthorised access;

2.1.5.2 a person had failed, was failing or was likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation; the claimant relies on obligations under GDPR 2016 to prevent unlawful processing, maintain the accuracy of records and the integrity and confidentiality of records from unauthorised processing or accidental loss or damage.

2.1.5.3 information tending to show any of these things had been, was being or was likely to be deliberately concealed.

2.1.6 Was that belief reasonable?

(1) On 9 August 2023 to Daniel Hall that files had gone missing (disclosure 1)

(2) At a meeting with Daniel Hall between 11 and 14 August 2023 that Shareen Shah had tampered with the claimant’s logs (disclosure 2)

(3) On 15 August 2023 informed Abhishek Patel in IT that 905 files had been deleted (disclosure 3)

(4) On 15 August 2023 informed Daniel Hall that 905 more files had been deleted (disclosure 4)

(5) On 15 August 2023 emailed Shereen Shah that her work had been altered and that she had been asked to backdate an altered document (disclosure 5).

2.2 If the claimant made a qualifying disclosure, it was a protected disclosure because it was made to the claimant’s employer.

[3]Detriment (Employment Rights Act 1996 section 48)3.1 Did the respondent do the following things:3.1.1 after 9 August 2023, slower feedback (detriment 1)

3.1.2 being asked to process Specialty IP Contact Lenses without training (detriment 2)

3.1.3 from 11 to 18 August 2023 no feedback (detriment 3)

3.1.4 same period, colleagues did not respond to requests for training (detriment 4)

3.1.5 accusing the claimant of serious breaches of PSA guidelines which were not her fault (detriment 5)

3.1.6 not checking her work (detriment 6)

3.1.7 substituting a disciplinary process for probation review (detriment 7)

3.2 By doing so, did it subject the claimant to detriment?

3.3 If so, was it done on the ground that she made a protected disclosure? Evidence

[4]The tribunal heard evidence from the claimant on her own behalf and from Daniel Hall (Registration Operations Manager and the claimant’s manager), Shereen Shah (Registration Operations Manager), Stephen Brooker (Director of Regulatory Strategy), Andrew Mackay-Sim (formerly Head of Governance) and Raid Alyassiri (IT Manager) on behalf of the respondent.

[5]There was a bundle before the tribunal of 714 pages. Two further pages were added during the course of the hearing. Facts

[6]The tribunal made the following findings of facts on the balance of probabilities.

[7]The respondent is the statutory regulator for optical practitioners in the UK. It maintains a register of optical practitioners which is accessible to the public.

[8]Registrants have an obligation to make disclosures of relevant information relating to their health, disciplinary matters or criminal matters. These disclosures are logged by a member of the registration team, then reviewed by another member of the team who makes a recommendation regarding next steps in respect of that disclosure, with the final decision on next steps being taken by a manager.

[9]The respondent operates a Speaking Up policy for staff to discuss any whistleblowing concerns.

[10]The claimant started her employment with the respondent on 2 May 2023 as a Registration Officer. This role required her to process applications and disclosures from Registrants, both UK-based and from abroad, with publishable information being placed on the register. Her manager was Daniel Hall.

[11]The claimant’s employment contract stated that there was a probationary period of six months. Daniel Hall initially told the claimant that the probationary period was three months but he subsequently corrected this.

[12]On 1 June 2023, after the claimant had been in post for about a month, there was a team meeting to discuss the results of a staff survey which had taken place the previous November (several months before the claimant had started her employment). At the meeting the claimant spoke up, suggesting she was speaking on behalf of her colleagues, making negative comments about the processes used by the respondent.

[13]The claimant’s first probation review meeting on 26 June 2023 was positive. She was therefore given more complex tasks to undertake.

[14]At a monthly catch up with the head of department, Nadia Patel, on 6 July 2023, Nadia Patel referred to the survey discussion meeting and told the claimant that she should consider her approach when speaking up on matters on which she did not have full awareness.

[15]In July 2023, the claimant and her colleague, Phoebe Salisbury, were comparing their respective workloads. The claimant suggested that it was Phoebe Salisbury who was unhappy, not her. Based on the screenshots and Daniel Hall’s letter of 26 June 2023, I find that the claimant believed that she was being allocated more work than her colleague and complained about this to Daniel Hall. He explained to her that she had not understood the information she had based her conclusion on and that there was no unfairness in the allocation of work.

[16]On 13 July 2023, a mistake regarding a Letter of Good Standing came light. The claimant had sent the Letter to the Registrant instead of the Health Authority who had requested it. This was resolved by the claimant with the assistance of Daniel Hall.

[17]On 17 July 2023, the claimant received training from Christian Glenister, explaining the Specialties which can be recorded on the Register, namely specialist Optometrists who can become qualified to prescribe independently and specialist Dispensing Opticians who can become qualified in Contact Lens Specialty. The claimant was told that most of the time she would be dealing with Optometrists but if she came across a Contact Lens Specialty, she should contact him as the procedure was different.

[18]On 19 July 2023, the claimant reported a low-risk data breach after she sent an email to the wrong Registrant, who had the same surname as the intended recipient.

[19]On or about 28 July 2023, the claimant inadvertently entered a Specialty on the Register in respect of a Registrant. Any changes to the specialty registration appear immediately on the public register and the claimant was reminded of this by Oliver George.

[20]At the end of July / beginning of August 2023, the claimant notified the IT support team (ROCK) of problems with her laptop. As the laptop was three years old, the recommendation was that the claimant should be issued with a new laptop. She received a new laptop on 1 August 2023. She was told how to copy her files from her old laptop to the new laptop. Part of the advice was to copy files she had kept locally on the laptop to the OneDrive in the cloud so that they could be accessed from any device.

[21]On 8 August 2023, Phoebe Salisbury noticed that a declaration saved for one Registrant actually contained the declaration for a different Registrant. Daniel Hall raised this with the claimant as the error appeared to have been made when she logged the declaration.

[22]On 9 August 2023, the claimant was unable to locate her work files on her laptop. She contacted ROCK who located the files in the claimant’s Recycle Bin. She informed Daniel Hall of the issue (Protected Disclosure 1).

[23]Daniel Hall began to have concerns about the claimant’s accuracy and put her on 100% peer review. This meant that all her work needed to be double checked and anything which would normally go live on the Register had to be done in draft first.

[24]At a meeting on 15 August, the claimant told Daniel Hall that Shareen Shah’s name had appeared in the notes section of a Registrant’s record (Protected Disclosure 2). This is not a public-facing record and is a log used for internal purposes to provide information regarding the history of a declaration. This was the declaration which had been noticed by Phoebe Salisbury a few days earlier and notified to Shareen Shah. Shareen Shah actioned this by allocating it to Phoebe Salisbury to deal with. This will show as an activity on the Audit History and, although the note will show ‘modification’, this does not necessarily mean any modification to the underlying document has taken place. The claimant has misunderstood this, which is understandable as the terminology is confusing.

[25]On 15 August 2023, the claimant had no access to her work files and she thought that all her work was being deleted. She contacted IT Support who told her he could not explain what was happening but he advised her to ensure that her work was saved on the OneDrive. 905 files were located in the claimant’s recycle bin. (Protected Disclosure 3).

[26]The claimant then raised this with Daniel Hall (Protected Disclosure 4). Daniel Hall regarded this as a local IT issue with the claimant’s laptop and was frustrated that she was spending so much time trying to analyse what had gone wrong rather than focussing on fixing the problem and getting back to work

[27]The claimant emailed Shareen Shah, copying in Daniel Hall, informing them that she had logged a declaration and assigned it to another colleague for reallocation and recommendation but that it had been reassigned to her. She asked Shareen Shah to let her know how she should progress the declaration (Protected Disclosure 5).

[28]The claimant had logged a declaration on 20 July 2023. The audit history shows that the claimant opened the declaration on 14 August 2023 although took no action in relation to it. Shareen Shah asked her to keep the date as 20 July 2023 as that was the date that the action had been taken and not 14 August 2023 because no action was taken on that date.

[29]The claimant felt unwell and took the rest of the day (15 August) and the following day (16 August) as sick leave.

[30]During the claimant’s sickness absence, Daniel Hall spoke to IT and a resolution to the claimant’s IT issues was agreed and implemented. Although the IT team were unable to explain exactly what had happened, their conclusion was that the most likely explanation was that the claimant had deleted files herself inadvertently and that issues had arisen arising from the transfer of files from her old laptop to the new laptop and to the Onedrive. No other users were affected by any of the issues reported by the claimant.

[31]On 24 August 2023, during the peer review process, Oliver George found that the claimant had entered incorrect registration information in that she had put the registrant as having a specialty only available to optometrists, not dispensing opticians (which the registrant was). The claimant alleges that she had not been trained to deal with this. The evidence shows that Christian Glenister told her that she had to see advice in this situation. The claimant said she had tried to contact Christian Glenister but could not get hold of him. She then tried someone else who was unavailable and, mindful of the need to deal with matters promptly, she went ahead with the task.

[32]Daniel Hall became concerned about the claimant’s performance as a result of a number of errors including sending invoices for the incorrect fee for the relevant application, delays in requesting peer reviews, incorrect suffix to show a non-UK registration and various errors on applications. Even though each of these was, by itself, relatively minor, Daniel Hall was concerned about the number of errors and the way in which the claimant became easily distracted by her IT issues, focussing more on analysing and investigating the problem rather than resolving it and getting back to her tasks.

[33]On 6 September 2023, Daniel Hall invited the claimant to a probation review meeting to be held on 8 September 2023. The purpose of the meeting was to review the claimant’s performance and to determine if she had passed her probation, whether probation should be extended or whether her employment should be terminated.

[34]Daniel Hall was accompanied at the meeting by Tom Henery of HR. Tom Henery and Daniel Hall took the claimant through some of the errors she had made. The claimant did not accept she had made errors and accused the respondent of fabricating errors and deleting her work.

[35]At the end of the meeting, Daniel Hall informed the claimant that her employment was being terminated because her performance was below the standard expected by the respondent. This decision was confirmed in writing and the claimant was paid in lieu of notice.

[36]Daniel Hall prepared a draft dismissal letter which set out a number of the errors and also included ‘further issues of note’ being the suggestion of unfair allocation of work, speaking out at the staff survey meeting and spending too long trying to resolve an IT issue. The draft was amended by HR and a shorter dismissal letter, using HR’s template, was sent to the claimant. She was given the right to appeal.

[37]By email dated 14 September 2023, the claimant appealed against her dismissal. The appeal was conducted on 10 October 2023 by Stephen Brooker who was provided with a bundle of relevant documents together with HR policies. The appeal dealt with the reason for dismissal and was not an investigation into the allegations regarding IT matters. The claimant disputed that she had made any errors and alleged that she had not been aware that there were any concerns about her performance. She also said that mistakes were due to the IT issues and that the real reason for dismissal was that she brought to the respondent’s attention that 905 files had been deleted.

[38]As part of his investigation, Daniel Hall was asked to comment on the claimant’s allegation that no performance issues were raised with her after 26 June until she received notice of the meeting which led to her dismissal. Daniel Hall replied on 18 October 2023 setting out some of the errors which had been brought to the claimant’s attention and adding that they had decided to go ahead with dismissal rather than a warning due to evidence of her conduct, performance and ‘also concerns regarding accusations’.

[39]After carrying out investigations, Stephen Brooker wrote to the claimant on 24 October 2023 and upheld the dismissal on the grounds that there were sufficient errors to show she did not have the required competence to be a Registration Officer and that she had been made aware of errors and had been put on 100% peer review. He decided that any issues with IT were temporary and did not explain the errors. Stephen Brooker was satisfied that the reason for dismissal was the claimant’s under performance and management’s decision that she was unlikely to improve her performance to an acceptable level.

[40]After the claimant commenced these proceedings, the respondent asked Andrew Mackay-Sim to investigate whether any registrant data on the Register had been tampered with. He found no evidence to support the claimant’s complaints that her colleagues had tampered with registrants’ records. The entries on the audit logs were consistent with the normal tasks carried out by the Registration Team. Law

[41]The Employment Rights Act 1996 (“ERA 1996”) contains the following relevant provisions: Section 43A: Meaning of 'protected disclosure' In this Act a 'protected disclosure' means a qualifying disclosure (as defined by section 43B) which is made by a worker in accordance with any sections 43C to 43H. Section 43B: Disclosures qualifying for protection In this Part a 'qualifying disclosure' means any disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of the worker making the disclosure is made in the public interest and tends to show one or more of the following—(a) that a criminal offence has been committed, is being committed or is likely to be committed,

(b) that a person has failed, is failing or is likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation to which he is subject,

(d) that the health or safety of any individual has been, is being or is likely to be endangered,

(e) that the environment has been, is being or is likely to be damaged, or

(f) that information tending to show any matter falling within any one of the preceding paragraphs has been, or is likely to be deliberately concealed. Section 47B: Protected disclosures (detriment) (1) A worker has the right not to be subjected to any detriment by any act, or any deliberate failure to act, by his employer done on the ground that the worker has made a protected disclosure. Section 103A: Protected disclosure (dismissal) An employee who is dismissed shall be regarded for the purposes of this Part as unfairly dismissed if the reason (or, if more than one, the principal reason) for the dismissal is that the employee made a protected disclosure.

[42]In Williams v Brown (

UKEAT/0044/19

), the EAT set out the five constituent parts of the test: It is worth restating, as the authorities have done many times, that this definition breaks down into a number of elements. First, there must be a disclosure of information. Secondly, the worker must believe that the disclosure is made in the public interest. Thirdly, if the worker does hold such a belief, it must be reasonably held. Fourthly, the worker must believe that the disclosure tends to show one or more of the matters listed in subparagraphs (a) to (f). Fifthly, if the worker does hold such a belief, it must be reasonably held.

[43]A disclosure of information must contain “sufficient factual content and specificity such as is capable of tending to show one of the matters listed in section 43B (1)” (Kilraine v London Borough of Wandsworth

[2018] IRLR 846

[44]In most cases of internal individual employment disputes, disclosures would not be regarded as disclosures in the public interest although there may be situations where they are, for example if more than one worker is involved. (Chesterton Global Ltd v Nurmohamed

[2017] IRLR 837

[45]The tribunal must determine whether the claimant subjectively held the belief that the disclosure is in the public interest at the time and, if so, whether that belief was objectively reasonable.

[46]The disclosure must tend to show a breach of a legal obligation. The claimant does not need to be correct for this condition to be satisfied provided that she had a reasonable belief that her disclosures tended to show the wrongdoing.

[47]The tribunal must determine whether the claimant subjectively held the belief at the time that there was a breach of a legal obligation and, if so, whether that belief was objectively reasonable. The tribunal will take into account the knowledge, qualifications and experience of the claimant (Korashi v Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Local Health Board

[2012] IRLR 4

[48]A detriment is anything which a reasonable employee in the claimant’s position could consider to be a disadvantage. It is for the employer to show the reasons for any act or failure to act. If a protected disclosure materially influenced the decision and was more than a trivial ground, this will be whistleblowing detriment.

[49]If the fact that the claimant made a protected disclosure was the reason or principal reason for dismissal, this will be an automatically unfair dismissal. Determination of the

Issues

[50]By way of general comment, the evidence shows that the claimant did not have a full grasp of the way the IT systems operated both in respect of her own workspace and in respect of the system generally. The consequence of this failure to understand the system is that the claimant drew, and continues to draw, conclusions from the information she has which are misconceived.

[51]For example, the claimant alleged that there was a ‘Mark Payne mode’ because the name Mark Payne would sometimes show up when a modification was made on the audit log. The claimant did not know Mark Payne and assumed he was fictional and used to conceal changes to the database. Daniel Hall explained that the claimant would not necessarily know Mark Payne but he works for a consultancy which supports the respondent and where large-scale changes are made affecting numerous logs, this will show up as ‘Mark Payne’.

[52]Further, the claimant made serious allegations of tampering and fabrication against her colleagues because she misunderstood the way the system worked. Rather than accept and learn from her errors, the claimant has deflected any criticisms of her performance as ‘manipulation’ by the respondent.

[53]In relation to some of the alleged protected disclosures, the claimant is asking the tribunal to ‘read between the lines’ of what she actually said to interpret those words as disclosures of information which would be protected disclosures. This is not the correct legal approach and I must consider what words were actually used by the claimant at the time in order to determine whether she made protected disclosures. Protected Disclosure 1 - On 9 August 2023 to Daniel Hall that files had gone missing

[54]I find that the first alleged disclosure was not a protected disclosure. The notification to Daniel Hall was information about an IT problem being experienced by the claimant. There was no indication from the claimant at the time that she believed that a legal obligation was being breached. She was frustrated by the IT difficulties on her laptop but this was not a systemic problem relating to data held by the respondent and the public facing Register was not affected by the issues on the claimant’s laptop.

[55]There is no evidence that files were being deleted or had been deleted other than by the claimant herself, albeit inadvertently. The claimant was attempting to access documents from the ‘Recently used’ list but documents which have been moved cannot be accessed from this list. The claimant does not appear to have been aware of this.

[56]I therefore find that the claimant did not disclose information which tended to show the breach of any legal obligation. To the extent that the claimant did hold such a belief, it was not expressed and, in any event, was not reasonable. I accept that the claimant may possibly have believed that the issue related to the public register but such a belief was not reasonable. She should have been aware, performing the role that she did, that there was a distinction between documents held on the administrative side of the organisation and the public facing Register. Protected Disclosure 2 - At a meeting with Daniel Hall between 11 and 14 August 2023 that Shareen Shah had tampered with the claimant’s logs

[57]During the course of the evidence, it became apparent that the claimant was referring to a meeting with Daniel Hall on 15 August 2023 and the reference to ‘between 11 and 14 August’ was wrong.

[58]The disclosure made to Daniel Hall was that Shareen Shah’s name appeared on the Audit history, which the claimant did not understand. The claimant alleges that Shareen Shah was secretly listening in on her meeting with Daniel Hall on 15 August 2023. There is no evidence to support this suggestion, which is denied by Daniel Hall and Shareen Shah, and I find that there is no substance to the allegation.

[59]The claimant showed Daniel Hall a photograph she had taken of the Audit History which included a change made by Shareen Shah, where she changed the owner of the declaration from Yeslin Gearty to the claimant. This was because she needed the claimant to do the referral as part of her training.

[60]I find that this is not a protected disclosure. The claimant has queried why Shareen Shah’s name is on the Audit History. There is no breach of any legal obligation and the claimant has not identified what legal obligation she believes has been breached. The audit history and other tabs on the declaration screens are tools for the registration department to follow the progress of a declaration and are not part of the public facing Register. If the claimant was not aware of this and believed that there was a breach of a legal obligation and that it was in the public interest to disclose it, such a belief was not reasonable. Protected disclosure 3 - On 15 August 2023 the claimant informed Abhishek Patel in IT that 905 files had been deleted

[61]I find that this was not a protected disclosure. The claimant had trouble locating files but this issue was limited to her laptop and was most likely explained by the transfer of files from her old laptop to her new laptop. The claimant expressed concern to IT but did not provide information which tended to show a breach of any legal obligation. If, as the claimant believed, the deleted files contained personal data, IT would have known that the data could not be deleted from the Register in this way and that the deleted files were a result of issues which only related to the claimant’s laptop and OneDrive. Protected disclosure 4 - On 15 August 2023 the claimant informed Daniel Hall that 905 more files had been deleted

[62]The claimant informed Daniel Hall of the 905 files which she had found in her Recycle bin and that she was having issues accessing her files. The claimant says she believed that this was evidence of large-scale loss of data. Daniel Hall and the IT department understood this to be a local issue with the claimant’s laptop only, and that the most likely explanation for the problems was user error by the claimant. The claimant has not identified the legal obligation she says has been breached. In any event, if she did hold a belief that there had been a breach of a legal obligation, such a belief was not reasonable.

[63]I find that this was not a protected disclosure. Protected disclosure 5 - On 15 August 2023 emailed Shereen Shah that her work had been altered and that she had been asked to backdate an altered document

[64]I find that the claimant has misunderstood what Shareen Shah had instructed her to do. The claimant had accessed the declaration, which showed up as an action on 14 August 2023. However, no changes were made to the declaration which had originally been dated on 20 July 2023, and so Shareen Shah instructed the claimant to keep the date as 20 July 2023. This was in the claimant’s interest as it was evidence that she had processed the declaration promptly in July. If she had changed the date, it would have looked as though she had delayed processing the declaration for a number of weeks.

[65]The claimant has not identified what legal obligation was breached. If she did believe the information tended to show a breach of a legal obligation, such a belief was not reasonable.

[66]Although I have not found that the claimant made any protected disclosures, I will deal with detriments in case I am wrong about the protected disclosures. Detriment 1 – slower feedback after 9 August 2023 (date of Protected Disclosure 1)

[67]I find that it is possible that there was slower feedback during August 2023 due to other pressures on the team and the holiday season. The claimant was not criticised for delays which were due to slower feedback so it was not detrimental in that sense. It may have amounted to a detriment if she wanted her task list to clear up quicker.

[68]However, I accept the respondent’s explanation that the team were busy with deadlines and other pressures of work, and the claimant would have been aware of this. I do not find that the issue of missing files had any impact on the speed of feedback to the claimant. Detriment 2 – processing specialty IP contact lenses application without training

[69]The claimant received training which told her that she needed to seek help in dealing with such an application. It is true that she was not trained in processing the application but she was told what to do if such an application came up. In the event, she did try and seek help but was unable to contact anyone. I do not find that this amounts to a detriment. Detriment 3 – lack of feedback between 11 and 18 August 2023

[70]The claimant received feedback in this period. The respondent has shown that there was feedback in this period, which included some sickness absence of the claimant. I do not find that this amounts to a detriment. Detriment 4 – No responses to requests for training between 11 and 18 August 2023

[71]The claimant has not shown that she made requests for training in this period. I do not find that this amounts to a detriment. Detriment 5 – accusing the claimant of a serious breach of PSA guidelines

[72]Daniel Hall did have occasion to speak to the claimant about errors and he explained to her that the respondent had obligations to comply with PSA guidelines and errors could result in a breach of these guidelines. I accept the respondent’s evidence that no direct accusation was made that the claimant was responsible for such a breach but I understand that the claimant would have taken the comment as a direct criticism of her. To the extent that this amounts to a detriment, it is not because of anything other than the errors made by the claimant, which Daniel Hall had to bring to her attention. Detriment 6 – not checking work

[73]This alleged detriment is a repeat of alleged detriments 1 and 3. I do not find that this amounts to a detriment. Detriment 7 – substituting disciplinary process for probation review

[74]The claimant was dismissed following her probation review meeting. The reason given was that she had failed to meet the performance levels required in order to pass probation. The meeting was not called to address misconduct issues and the claimant is misconceived in understanding the meeting to have been about her conduct. Even if other issues with the claimant were in Daniel Hall’s mind, such as her speaking up at the Survey meeting or complaining about work allocation, I accept his evidence that it was the claimant’s numerous errors which led to the termination of her employment, not any conduct issues. I find that there is no detriment. Dismissal

[75]I find that the claimant has not established that the reason or principal reason for dismissal was that she had made protected disclosures. I find that Daniel Hall was concerned at the number of errors committed by the claimant and her inability to understand how the system worked meant that this was unlikely to improve sufficiently in future. I find that he was frustrated by her approach, in particular the time she spent analysing IT issues rather than just resolving them and moving on but this was not instrumental in his decision to terminate her employment.

[76]I find that there were issues which Daniel Hall had in mind when explaining the reasons for terminating the claimant’s employment which included her speaking up at a meeting when she had just joined, purporting to be a spokesperson for her colleagues who had been employed for much longer; the issue of whether she was being allocated a fair workload; the disproportionate amount of time spend on IT issues; and accusing colleagues of tampering with her work.

[77]In conclusion I find that the claimant made no protected disclosures. If I am wrong about that and the claimant has been subjected to any detriment, that was not because she had made any protected disclosures. I also find that her dismissal was not because she had made protected disclosures but because her performance did not meet the required standards and there was no indication that it would do so in future.

[78]The claimant’s claims fail and are dismissed.