Mr K Squire v East Surrey College Corporation: 6006286/2024

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 6006286/2024

Between

Mr K SquireClaimant

East Surrey College CorporationRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Morton

In person for claimant

Date 18 July 2025

JUDGMENT

The Claimant’s claim of unfair dismissal under ss 94 and 98 Employment Rights Act 1996 is not well founded and is dismissed. Approved by: THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL SITTING AT: LONDON SOUTH by CVP BEFORE: EMPLOYMENT JUDGE MORTON BETWEEN: Mr K Squire Claimant AND East Surrey College Corporation Respondent ON: 16-18 July 2025 Appearances: For the Claimant: In person For the Respondent: Mr Treston, Peninsula Representative Written reasons provided at the request of the claimant

[1]An oral judgment dismissing the claimant’s claim of unfair dismissal was given at the end of the three-day hearing in this matter. I produce these written reasons in response to a request from the claimant that was referred to me on 15 October 2025.

[2]By a claim form presented on 21 July 2024 the claimant had brought a claim of unfair dismissal against the respondent, which the respondent resisted. The hearing took place by CVP and I was satisfied that everyone present could see and hear clearly. At the hearing I heard evidence from the claimant himself and his witnesses Becky James and Paul Mays. The respondent’s witnesses were Eva Dixon, Chief Operating Officer of the respondent, Lindsay Pamphilon, Principal and Chief Executive Officer and Samantha Bromige, Director of People and Culture.

[3]I was provided with a bundle of documents consisting of 467 pages and page references in this judgment are to the page numbers in that bundle. The Law

[4]The claim engaged three sections of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (‘ERA’), s94 which contains the right not to be unfairly dismissed, s98, which provides: 98General.(1) In determining for the purposes of this Part whether the dismissal of an employee is fair or unfair, it is for the employer to show— (a) the reason (or, if more than one, the principal reason) for the dismissal, and (b) that it is either a reason falling within subsection (2) or some other substantial reason of a kind such as to justify the dismissal of an employee holding the position which the employee held.

(2) A reason falls within this subsection if it— (a) relates to the capability or qualifications of the employee for performing work of the kind which he was employed by the employer to do, (b) relates to the conduct of the employee, (c) is that the employee was redundant, or (d) is that the employee could not continue to work in the position which he held without contravention (either on his part or on that of his employer) of a duty or restriction imposed by or under an enactment. and s139 which provides: 139 Redundancy. (1) For the purposes of this Act an employee who is dismissed shall be taken to be dismissed by reason of redundancy if the dismissal is wholly or mainly attributable to— (a) the fact that his employer has ceased or intends to cease— (i) to carry on the business for the purposes of which the employee was employed by him, or (ii) to carry on that business in the place where the employee was so employed, or (b) the fact that the requirements of that business— (i) for employees to carry out work of a particular kind, or (ii) for employees to carry out work of a particular kind in the place where the employee was employed by the employer, have ceased or diminished or are expected to cease or diminish.

[5]I was also referred to and took into account the following authorities:a. Williams and others & Compair Maxam Ltd [ 1982] ICR 156 at 162

b. Teixeira & Zaika Restaurant Ltd

2022 EAT 171

at 20-26

c. Alvis Vickers Ltd & Lloyd EAT 2005 /0785/04 at 25-26

d. Halpin & Sandpiper Books Ltd 2012

UKEAT/0171/11

at 15

e. Wrexham Golf Club Co Ltd v Ingham 2012

UKEAT/0190/12

at 21 The issues in the case

[6]The respondent defended the claim on the basis that the claimant was fairly dismissed for redundancy. Where the respondent alleges that there was a redundancy situation, the issues that arise at the liability stage In an unfair dismissal case are as follows:a. What was the reason or principal reason for dismissal? The respondent says the reason was redundancy.

b. If the reason was redundancy, did the respondent act reasonably in all the circumstances in treating that as a sufficient reason to dismiss the claimant. The Tribunal will usually decide, in particular, whether: i. The respondent adequately warned and consulted the claimant; ii. The respondent adopted a reasonable selection decision, including its approach to a selection pool; iii. The respondent took reasonable steps to find the claimant suitable alternative employment; iv. Dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses. Findings of fact

[7]I make the following findings of fact based on the documentary and oral taken evidence I heard and the evidence contained in witness statements. I make those findings on a balance of probabilities and where assertions have not been specifically challenged, I have in the main taken them to be accepted. That is the case particularly in relation to my findings on the background to this dispute, to which I now turn.

[8]I start by saying that I found the claimant to be an articulate and courteous witness who clearly and understandably feels very strongly about what has happened to him. I have not entirely accepted that his perception of what happened was grounded in fact and I consider that he has at times been inclined to draw conclusions that are not justified on the basis of the objective evidence with which I was presented. But this does not mean that I thought that he was doing anything other than telling the truth as he saw it.

[9]The respondent is a General Further Education College with approximately 350 staff members and a population of approximately 4500 full and part time students. The claimant worked for the respondent from April 2017, initially as Head of Finance and Resources. At the time the claimant was appointed he reported to Ms. Jyoti Baker, Vice Principal Finance & Resources, who subsequently became Chief Operating Officer. In May 2022 Eva Dixon became the respondent’s Chief Operating Officer, on Ms Baker’s retirement. The claimant was at the time enjoying his role and receiving positive feedback in his appraisals.

[10]Matters began to deteriorate after Ms Dixon’s appointment. At around the same time the respondent’s Head of Facilities Debbie Wright retired, but her role remained vacant due to a lack of suitable applicants. As a result Ms Dixon began to ask the claimant to perform some of the tasks that had previously fallen to Miss Wright. This led to a substantial increase in his workload, to his working excessive hours and an adverse impact on the functioning of the finance team. Eventually the claimant resigned from his position, but rather than accept his resignation the respondent prevailed upon him to accept a new role of Assistant Principal thus formalising his oversight of the Finance and Facilities teams. The change took effect in September 2022.

[11]The claimant accepted the role against a number of assurances about the support he would receive and the extent of his workload. In particular he was assured that he would receive more support and mentoring from Ms Dixon. In practice this did not materialise and the claimant did not have even one to one meetings with her on a regular basis. Some of the meetings took place for example when she was driving, or when she was experiencing IT issues. Understandably the claimant found this very unsatisfactory and found the contrast with his previous experience an unhappy one. Ms Dixon had a habit of not turning up to meetings that she had asked to be put in the diary. This had a number of consequences for her reports, including difficulties in progressing matters and decisions that required her input. It was the claimant’s unchallenged evidence that this led to her adopting a defensive and at times bullying approach when the consequences of her own lack of engagement created problems for the functioning of the organisation. The claimant described how he bore the brunt of this and at times had to defend both himself and his reports against what he regarded as unfair treatment by Ms Dixon. He gave as an example of this the issue of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme which caused difficulties between January and May 2023, resulting in resignations from members of staff and significant amounts of additional work for him and his colleagues. Ms Dixon took a very long time to acknowledge that there was an issue and unfairly blamed the claimant when she did eventually take an interest.

[12]As a result, from early in 2023 the claimant’s working relationship with Ms Dixon began to deteriorate. The claimant spoke both to Dr Pamphilon and Ms Bromige about this. Dr Pamphilon did not recall any of the conversations that took place but I had no reason to doubt the claimant’s evidence on this. Ms Bromige acknowledged in her witness statement that these conversations had taken place, and described them as representing ‘times of frustration’, but also as ‘falling within the boundaries of normal working relationships that are often discussed with me in my role’. I find as fact that Ms Bromige was aware of the difficulties and the impact that these were having on the claimant. At one point, in May 2023 Ms Bromige suggested to the claimant that he might want to move into a less demanding role in another organisation (pages 216-219).

[13]There was also an exchange of emails between the claimant and Ms Dixon on 17 August 2023 (page 250) after Ms Dixon returned to the College campus during the summer break and sent an email criticising the state of the College environment which caused both the claimant, Mr Mays and members of the facilities team to be very angry. The claimant wrote a detailed response explaining what had and had not been done and why and the role that poor communication with Ms Dixon had had in those decisions. There were further difficult exchanges following this incident and I find as a fact that the claimant was not the only person who found Ms Dixon’s management style very difficult. I accepted Mr Mays’ and Ms James’ evidence of their own difficulties in communicating with Ms Dixon and the difficulties this created for them and their teams.

[14]The claimant nevertheless persisted in his role. One assertion that he made in his evidence that I did not accept to be true on a balance of probabilities was that Ms Dixon had been canvassing staff for negative feedback on his performance. The evidence of this was very thin, consisting of contemporaneous text messages sent by him to colleagues, reporting on things that had been said to him by other members of staff. I was not persuaded that there was sufficient evidence that this had happened in the way suggested by the claimant.

[15]I accepted the claimant’s account of being asked to performance manage Ms James and declining to do so. I accepted the evidence of the claimant and Ms James that Ms Dixon targeted Ms James for unfair criticism, particularly when Ms James was waiting for responses or information from Ms Dixon herself in order to complete certain tasks. He gave the example of setting the budgets for the upcoming financial year (which she had refused to allow Ms James to start planning for). He pointed out the unfairness of then managing Ms. James against the delivery of a project she had no control over.

[16]These problems came to a head at a meeting on 1 March 2023 attended by Ms. James and several other staff members. I accepted the claimant’s evidence that Ms. Dixon displayed bullying and belittling behaviour towards Ms. James and that the claimant did his best to defend Ms James. He received a call from Ms Dixon after the meeting blaming him for ‘not having dealt with her sooner’ and responded in strong terms. In his evidence he says, ‘I firmly conveyed my view that her behaviour towards Ms James had been wholly unacceptable over several months. I also highlighted that Ms. Dixon’s working practices and attitude frequently made it unreasonably difficult for staff to meet her expectations. I concluded the call by stating that I would need to consult with HR regarding the appropriate next steps, and I promptly ended the conversation’. The claimant resolved at that point to raise a grievance against Ms Dixon, but did not in fact do so until 18 March 2024.

[17]The claimant became convinced that this exchange and his decision to speak in forthright terms to Ms Dixon about her treatment of Ms James was responsible for the direction of the discussions that ensued about eliminating both of their roles in a restructuring. The respondent defends this claim on the basis that there was already a proposal for restructuring of the finance team on the table and had been since at least February 2024 as evidenced by the Executive Minutes at page 88-89. In fact, there is evidence at page 299 in the form of minutes of an executive meeting on 17 January 2024 that there were perceived risks in the finance operation – the words ‘Delay in budget setting. Finance structure changes to be discussed at Exec’ appeared under the heading ‘Consideration of risk’. The claimant himself seemed to accept that in terms of the chronology the proposal that the finance team might need to be restructured could not have been conceived because of the incident on 1 March – there was already a proposal for the redundancy of the claimant and Ms James, which at the time held the Finance Reporting Manager role that was laid out on 21 February 2024.

[18]The claimant was first told of this proposal on 7 March 2024 at a consultation meeting of which there are minutes at page 445. The claimant was provided with the detailed restructuring proposal (page 92). There was disagreement between the parties as to whether the claimant was told that he would be a direct appointment to the newly created Director of Finance role. I accept the claimant’s evidence that he did not understand that he would, but that he would have to apply and that Ms James was also asked whether she was interested in the role. However there would be no external candidates until their interest had been assessed. The document at page 445 records that the role was not considered a suitable alternative because of the drop in salary it would entail and because it was operational rather than strategic.

[19]The claimant was signed of sick with stress from 8 March 2024. On 11 March he raised a number of concerns about the redundancy proposal and on 18 March raised his grievance against Ms Dixon complaining of consistent lack of support from her, her manner of dealing with staff and the unfairness of the redundancy process. He therefore used the grievance process, in effect to appeal against the decision to place him at risk of redundancy.

[20]His grounds for challenging the fairness of the process were as follows: The timing of my "at risk" notiﬁcation closely follows challenging Eva's behaviour. Whilst I am aware that conversations were already underway regarding how best to resource the Finance and Facilities functions, the timing of both myself and Becky being placed ‘at risk’ just 2 working days after directly challenging Eva’s behaviour, and starting to explore a formal resolution to be beyond coincidental. It is apparent to me that Becky's role is being targeted due to her difficult relationship with Eva, potentially as an easier option than performance management. You have claimed during the consultation that the timing is unrelated to the events of the preceding week and that the other managerial roles within the department had been considered for redundancy and rejected. This may have been the case, however spurious the reason may be, it in no way alters the fact that Eva will have had a signiﬁcant amount of input into the decision-making process, and that the rest of the Executive team will have been led by her in terms of the rationale. The consultation document I was initially provided was still in draft form, supporting documents were referenced but not included and that the redundancy calculation was incorrect suggest to me that the process was signiﬁcantly more rushed than is being claimed.

[21]The grievance was investigated by Dr Pamphilon and a grievance meeting took place on 22 March 2024. Ms Bromige was in attendance. On 16 April Ms Pamphilon gave her decision, upholding the grievance in part (314). She did not uphold the part of the grievance relating to the redundancy, saying: I understand that after the events of 1 March, notably the PSI budget review meeting, you may have felt that the decision to begin the consultation may be linked to those events, however as I am sure you are aware decisions to put individuals at risk of redundancy are never taken lightly; The proposals were put before the College Executive on 21 February for approval. By your own admission and confirmed by Eva, you and she had, informally, discussed proposals to demerge the role of Assistant Principal, Finance and Resources as early as September 2023, further proposals had been discussed with me during 1:1 meetings in January and February. This was I understand in recognition of the workload of the role and the increased demands given the changes in capital funding. I have spoken with Sam Bromige, about the presentation of some of the documents, and she acknowledges that there were omissions in the information provided. This was not, however, due to a last-minute decision to proceed with the consultation, but due to a slight change to the date it was notified due to the personal circumstances of one of those involved. I, therefore, do not uphold, this point of your grievance.

[22]Although dissatisfied with the outcome the claimant chose not to appeal, but instead wrote a letter dated 21 April 2024 (page 317), setting out his ongoing concerns. The respondent declined to deal with this as it fell outside the grievance appeal process. However, what the claimant said about the rationale for the redundancy encapsulates a key element of his claim that the redundancy dismissal was unfair. He wrote: ‘On reflection I may not have made my point clearly enough here, either in my grievance letter or in the subsequent investigation meeting. To be clear, I fully appreciate that my direct challenging of Eva’s behaviour towards Becky on 01/03/2024 and subsequent complaint to the People Team would not have triggered a redundancy consultation process from scratch. I do however believe that Eva would have taken the lead on the redundance proposal, and that her input would have been significantly influenced by her working relationships with both myself and Becky rather than being impartial and specifically focussed on roles and business needs. In short, my position remains that the business case was specifically engineered to place mine and Becky’s roles at risk, rather than vice-versa. Whilst I appreciate that plans were already in motion for a restructure, I also maintain that as a minimum the announcement of this was brought forward following the events of the previous week. I would also re-iterate here that Eva was still pushing to formally performance manage Becky in the weeks leading up to the announcement of a restructure.’

[23]Instead of responding to these points, justifiably in my view on the basis that they were raised outside the grievance procedure, on 16 May 2024 the respondent sent the claimant the outcome letter from the redundancy consultation process, again asking whether he was interested in either of the new roles. He was invited to a further meeting to discuss the outcome of the redundancy process and told that consultation about alternative roles would continue throughout his notice period, but on 22 May 2024 he wrote declining a further meeting. He set out his reasons for not wishing to accept either of the new roles, which can be summarised as relating to the lower salary and perceived demotion and the fact that he would continue to report to Eva Dixon with whom he considered himself to have a relationship that was beyond repair.

[24]He received formal notice of redundancy on 24 May 2024 and his employment ended on 24 September 2024 on the expiry of his notice period. Submissions

[25]I heard oral submissions from both the parties at the end of the evidence for which I was grateful and then took some time to consider the evidence before formulating my conclusions and giving an oral judgment with reasons. Those conclusions are now set out. Conclusions on the issues

[26]I find that the reason for the claimant’s dismissal fell squarely within s139(1)(b) ERA being that the respondent had less need of the work the claimant did – the role of Assistant Principal would disappear in the new structure and be replaced by two distinct roles. An argument could be had as to whether technically this amounted to a reduction in need for work of a particular kind rather than the redistribution of it, but on any analysis the need for the claimant’s role had disappeared.

[27]In deciding whether or not a dismissal for redundancy is fair or unfair the focus is very much on the procedure adopted by the respondent. My findings of fact about the procedure adopted are as follows:a. The Claimant was in a unique category and the only person performing his role. There was therefore no need for any form of selection matrix;

b. The Claimant was given proper warning of the possibility of dismissal for redundancy and an adequate period of consultation during which the proposals, the reasons for them and the procedure were adequately explained to him;

c. During that period, he was given a chance to discuss the proposals, put forward alternatives to the loss of his role and to express an interest in the new roles including the role of Director of Finance;

d. He was given multiple opportunities to engage in these discussions and when he used the grievance procedure to challenge aspects of the rationale for redundancy his grievance was investigated and responded to;

e. The Claimant’s queries and questions were adequately addressed albeit not to his satisfaction;

f. The claimant was given access to information about available alternative roles and copies of the relevant job descriptions;

g. The claimant did not avail himself of the opportunity to appeal the grievance decision, which would have entailed independent scrutiny by the Board;

h. His reasons for not accepting the alternative role of Director of Finance, or even expressing an interest in it, whilst understandable, were not ones that could reasonably be accommodated by the respondent. The respondent was entitled to set a salary for the role that could be benchmarked to similar roles in comparable organisations, albeit at the lower end, and it was not reasonable for the structure to create a reporting line from the claimant to someone other than the COO, Ms Dixon. It is really regrettable that the working relationship was so strained by that point that the claimant reached the conclusion, justifiably, that he could not continue in role, but as the focus in an unfair dismissal claim is what it is reasonable for the employer to do, I find that the respondent did not have a real alternative that would have addressed the claimant’s concerns. Furthermore, it was clear that the claimant had multiple reasons for not accepting the new role and that his working relationship with Ms Dixon was only part of the picture.

i. For the reasons outlined in Mr Treston’s submissions I find that the conduct of the redundancy was clearly within the margins of what a reasonable employer could do in these circumstances.

[28]In terms of the bare procedure therefore I cannot find anything to criticise – the correct steps were taken and the standards set out in Williams v Compair Maxam and other authorities were adhered to.

[29]The claimant’s criticism is more fundamental, which is that the decision to make him redundant was taken in bad faith by Eva Dixon, who was targeting him and Ms James. As he said on 21 April 2024, ‘I do however believe that Eva would have taken the lead on the redundance proposal, and that her input would have been significantly influenced by her working relationships with both myself and Becky rather than being impartial and specifically focussed on roles and business needs’.

[30]My difficulty with this proposition is that it is based on supposition and not on any evidence. I have accepted that the claimant raised some of his concerns about Ms Dixon with Dr Pamphilon and Ms Bromige, but there is no evidence that he raised them Ms Dixon in a way that might have given rise to reprisals until 1 March 2024, by which time the decision to eliminate his role had already been taken. When the claimant refers to his working relationship with Ms Dixon, I acknowledge that that was poor and I have accepted his evidence of what could fairly be described as her management failings. But it is a significant leap from acknowledging that there was a poor working relationship to concluding that that fact vitiates the possibility that a genuine redundancy situation had arisen. It seems to me clear that the respondent had concluded that the combined role was not working well and that a new structure would work better and was furthermore mandated by the forthcoming work on capital projects necessitated by the injection of £5milliion in funds. The respondent was entitled to conclude that this would need to be managed in a different structure.

[31]The claimant took issue with the respondent’s analysis of the structure that would work best and at times sought to persuade me that the structure itself was irrational and bound to fail to deliver the stated objectives. I did not have sufficient evidence to convince me that that was the case and furthermore do not consider that it is the role of the tribunal to interrogate an employer’s business rationale. It is the role of the tribunal to consider whether the employer has been fair to the affected employee by consulting with him and giving him an opportunity to apply for any alternative roles that are available. There were some minor defects in the respondent’s processes, such as sending out a consultation document that had mistakes in it – that is if nothing else, disrespectful to the recipients, but it is not enough to vitiate the fairness of the process overall.

[32]I appreciate that the claimant sees this matter very differently and by the end of his employment felt very badly treated, having been in effect the victim of an experiment in structuring the respondent’s operations that proved not to be functional and needed to be revamped. He had had to be prevailed upon to remain in his employment in 2022 and the terms on which he agreed to do so were not, from his perspective adhered to. But that does not mean that when the decision was taken to eliminate his role, the respondent was deprived of the ability to argue that a genuine redundancy situation had arisen. The procedure it then adopted is one that meets the objective standard set by s98(4) ERA and the applicable cases.

[33]I also cannot accept the claimant’s argument that the redundancy proposal was fundamentally flawed and unfair because it was retrofitted to engineer his exit. I consider that this argument is based on conjecture, and not supported by evidence and is perhaps in part a consequence of his very strong feelings about his treatment which he expressed very eloquently at the end of his submissions. However, that does not affect by conclusion that this was a genuine redundancy that was fairly carried out.

[34]The unfair dismissal claim does not therefore succeed.