MR A J ROYSTON v THE SYMPHONY GROUP PLC [2006] UKEAT 0673_05_2102

EMPLOYMENT APPEAL TRIBUNAL
BAILII case number: [2006] UKEAT 0673_05_2102Case No Appeal No. UKEAT/0673/05Venue 58 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT, LONDON EC4Y 0DS
Between
MR A J ROYSTONAPPELLANTTHE SYMPHONY GROUP PLCRESPONDENT
Before
His Honour Judge BurkeLord Davies of Coity Mr G LewisDate 21 February 2006
[1]APPEARANCES For the Appellant MS HELEN BARNEY (of Counsel) Instructed by: Messrs Stachiw Bashir Green Solicitors 1a Oastler Road Saltaire West Yorkshire BD18 4SE For the Respondent MR MARK WALKER (of Counsel) Instructed by: Messrs Lupton Fawcett Solicitors Yorkshire House East Parade Greek Street Leeds LS1 5SX SUMMARY Practice & Procedure: Case Management; Unfair Dismissal: Reason For Dismissal Including Substantial Other Reason In deciding that the employee's dismissal was for redundancy, the ET rejected his case that redundancy was a sham. Evidence as to what passed between the parties between the date of notification of redundancy and the termination at the end of the notice period of the contract of employment, was excluded, as was other evidence. The appeal, largely based on an attack on these exclusions, was dismissed. Although evidence of events after the employee has been told that he is dismissed on notice may be relevant to the reason for the dismissal, on analysis of the evidence which the employee wished to call but was not permitted to call, it was irrelevant or could not have made any difference to the ET's conclusions. HIS HONOUR JUDGE BURKE QC The Nature of the Appeal This is an appeal from the judgment of the Employment Tribunal sitting at Leeds, chaired by Mrs Elgot and sent to the parties with written reasons on 5 July 2005. By that judgment, the Tribunal dismissed the claim of the Appellant, Mr Royston, that he had been unfairly dismissed by his employer, The Symphony Group plc whom we shall call "Symphony".[2]Mr Royston was employed by Symphony from 1989. In his witness statement, he set out that he had been promoted over the years until he became a unit controller or manager of one of the departments called "Worktop Factory No 2" at Symphony's site in Leeds where Symphony manufactured kitchen, bedroom and bathroom furniture.[3]There was no dispute that, on 19 July 2004, Mr Royston was given a letter written by Mrs Wright, the Commercial Manager. It informed him that his position was redundant and, unless an alternative job was found, his employment would terminate on 18 October 2004; and his employment did, no alternative job having been found, end on that day.[4]Symphony's case was that Mr Royston had been dismissed for redundancy. Mr Royston's case was that the alleged reason of redundancy for his dismissal was a sham and that Symphony deliberately created a supposed redundancy situation as a means of getting rid of him.[5]The Tribunal found, at paragraph 6.3 of their judgment, that the reason for dismissal was redundancy. They then went on to find that Symphony had acted reasonably in proceeding on the basis that no selection was appropriate because Mr Royston was in a unique position, the only employee in a one-man pool, that there had been reasonable consultation and that it had been fair to dismiss Mr Royston for redundancy.[6]Mr Royston now challenges that decision. He has been represented before us by Ms Barney, although he represented himself with some assistance from his partner before the Tribunal. Symphony have been represented by Mr Walker who represented them before the Tribunal. We are grateful to both for their helpful submissions. The Facts[7]It is necessary, having set the scene in broad terms, as we have, to go into the facts in somewhat greater detail. It was, as we have said, Mr Royston's case that Symphony, in effect, invented a redundancy in order to dismiss him when it became clear that they were not going to or were unlikely to be able to dispense with his services on the basis of gross misconduct or gross negligence in respect of which disciplinary proceedings had been commenced.[8]Mr Royston's Originating Application and his witness statement set out that on 18 or 19 April he received an e-mail from his line manager, Mr Whitehouse, alleging production failures in the unit for which Mr Royston was responsible. The allegations in that e-mail were set out in some detail. They came under two heads, one relating to discoveries made by Mr Whitehouse about what had happened in the relevant workshop on 16 April (five allegations numbered A-E are set out) and the second head relating to discoveries that Mr Whitehouse made on visiting the relevant area on Sunday 18 April (those allegations are set out at A-D).[9]Shortly afterwards, Mr Royston was called to what was said to be a disciplinary hearing but was converted into an investigatory hearing when Mr Royston objected to Mr Whitehouse's holding the meeting when he was, as Mr Royston saw it, the accuser. At that stage, Mr Royston was charged with gross misconduct and gross negligence. As the investigatory meeting proceeded, Mr Royston gave his explanations upon the matters of complaint. At the end, Mr Royston was suspended pending the outcome of a disciplinary hearing. He never returned to work. While he was suspended, he took a pre-booked holiday for two weeks; when he returned, he was on 8 June signed off work by his doctor for four weeks with a diagnosis of work-related stress.[10]It was Symphony's case that, during Mr Royston's absence from work from the end of April, they discovered that they did not need anyone in the position which he occupied and could do without a manager at his level in the relevant unit. As the Tribunal put it, an efficiency saving could be made by making Mr Royston redundant. Mr Royston was informed of the possible redundancy on 2 June. He was told that the disciplinary process would be put on hold in the circumstances. The Tribunal found that that was the first step in the redundancy consultation process which continued for some time after 19 July, when his formal notice of dismissal on the ground of redundancy was given.[11]Mr Royston did not regard the supposed redundancy as genuine. It is clear from his Originating Application and his witness statement, that it was his case that the redundancy was a sham resorted to by Symphony as a false reason for dismissal as an alternative to the route of disciplinary proceedings which Symphony had, by this time, realised were bound to fail. In his witness statement at paragraph 38, Mr Royston said of his internal appeal: "My appeal was on grounds that the redundancy process was used as an alternative to what had proved to be a non existent disciplinary".[12]There is a disagreement between Ms Barney and Mr Walker as to whether it was also Mr Royston's case that the disciplinary proceedings were also a sham or "trumped up" in bad faith in order to get rid of him, as Mr Barney submits, or whether, as Mr Walker submits, it was Mr Royston's case and his perception simply that there was nothing in the allegations against him, which were bound to fail, and therefore. it being clear to Symphony, as he saw it that those proceedings were bound to fail to Symphony, they cooked up the redundancy in order to bring his employment to an end by that route.[13]We feel bound to say, reading the documents in this case, as a whole and in detail, that Mr Walker's version is more likely to be correct. It is consistent that the Tribunal's identification of the issues at paragraph 4.1 of their judgment in these terms:
"It is the Respondent's case that the reason for the Claimant's dismissal was redundancy. It was for the Respondent to show the reason for the dismissal and to demonstrate that it is an admissible reason in accordance with Section 98(2) Employment Rights Act 1996 . The Claimant contended that his dismissal was not by reason of redundancy but was for an inadmissible reason which he was unable to specify, save that he perceived that the Respondent wished to 'get rid of him'. He argued that the Respondent attempted to institute disciplinary proceedings against him on the basis of allegations of gross misconduct and gross negligence. He said that when the Respondent's attempt to dismiss him using that disciplinary route failed, the Respondent constructed a 'sham' redundancy which involved the complicity of senior management"
There is no ground of appeal in the Notice of Appeal expressly asserting that the Tribunal in that paragraph mis-described the issues which they had to decide. However, this difference between the parties which emerged before us need not be finally resolved because, in our judgment, the arguments which the parties had presented lead to the same result on this appeal on either basis.[14]After the decision to dismiss was made and notified on 19 July, there was a disciplinary hearing of the allegations which had been made in April. The disciplinary process, as we have said, had been put on hold, but Mr Royston asked that they be revived; and they were. The hearing took place three days later on 22 July. The outcome of that hearing was set out in a letter sent by Miss Wright to Mr Royston on 11 August. For the reasons there set out, Ms Wright concluded that, in the case of some of the matters raised by Mr Whitehouse, there had been on Mr Royston's part a lack of proper control over the production processes in his unit and that his ill-health may have been a contributory factor in that. She decided that the appropriate sanction was a written warning which would continue for 12 months. Mr Royston appealed against that decision. His appeal was dismissed by the Managing Director, Mr Davies, on 6 October. The Tribunal Decision[15]We have set out the issues identified by the Tribunal. At paragraph 5.1 the Tribunal said:
"First, we conclude that the Claimant was dismissed on 19 July 2004 with reference to page 163 of the bundle, which is a letter from Ms Wright to the Claimant confirming that he is redundant and that his employment will terminate on 8 October 2004"
. At paragraph 5.2, they set out the history of the disciplinary proceedings which, they said, were not concluded on 19 July, but were on hold and described how the disciplinary hearing took place on 22 July and proceeded as we have set out. In paragraph 5.4, they described and found as fact how, as a consequence of the commencement of the disciplinary proceedings, Mr Royston was suspended from work, took his holiday and was off work with ill-health (as we have described); and they said this: "Unfortunately, as sometimes happens in the absence, for whatever reason, of an employee, the employer ascertains that the said employee is not objectively needed by the organisation and that an efficiency saving can be achieved. In the Claimant's case, the Respondent became convinced that the Worktops Factory No 2 could run without the Claimant".[16]In paragraph 5.5 they found [that a redundancy situation had thus arisen] that Symphony had a diminished requirement for employees to carry out supervisory work of the kind performed by the Claimant and they said that Mr Whitehouse had credibly explained to them how he reached the commercial decision that the unit could be run efficiently without a dedicated manager. At paragraph 5.6 they said this: "The fact that the Respondent's business apparently no longer needed him has not been challenged by the Claimant in his documents or in his oral evidence. He candidly admitted to us that because he was absent from work he was unable to take a view as to whether his post was redundant or not. He said, in oral evidence, 'I had no reason to question to it'".[17]The Tribunal then turned to the reason for the dismissal. They said at paragraph 6.1, that they were satisfied that Mr Royston had produced no evidence beyond mere assertion that there was any other reason for his dismissal apart from redundancy.[18]In paragraph 6.2 they said:
"We are similarly satisfied that the Claimant has adduced no evidence of the conspiracy amongst the Respondent's managers to get rid of him. Indeed, in his oral evidence under cross-examination the Claimant abandoned these allegations when he said, 'I don't say they were acting together but each was unfair'"
. In paragraph 6.3 they expressed their conclusion that Symphony had shown an admissible reason for the Claimant's dismissal which was that he was redundant. The issue of fairness of that dismissal does not arise on this appeal. Rulings as to the Evidence[19]At the beginning of the hearing and later on the first day of the hearing when the Respondent's first witness was about to give evidence or about to be cross-examined (it matters not which) the Tribunal made two rulings as to the evidence which they would permit Mr Royston to call and to pursue by way of cross-examination.[20]First, the Tribunal ruled by way of what they described in paragraph 2 of their Decision as an interlocutory decision (because this ruling was given before the hearing proper started on the first morning of the hearing) that two witness statements produced by Mr Royston and provided to Symphony (as were all witness statements on 14 March, the day before the hearing commenced) were inadmissible. All witness statements between the parties were voluntarily exchanged on that day, there having been no order in relation to the exchange of witness statements.[21]The statements which were the subject of this ruling were from a Mr de Silva and a Mr Patterson. We will return to their content later. Both were employees of Symphony who worked in Mr Royston's unit and in their statements described events and work practices within that unit. They appeared to suggest that Symphony were requiring their employees to work in dangerous ways. The Tribunal said about that evidence that there was nothing in the Claim Form to suggest that breaches of safety principles were an issue in the proceedings, that there was nothing to that effect in the correspondence or documents passing between the parties and that, on that basis, the evidence should be excluded. For more detail, paragraph 2.2. of the Tribunal's Decision can be read in full.[22]The Tribunal's second decision as to evidence was made later in the day, at some stage either just before or in the course of the evidence of Symphony's first witness, Miss Wright. It related to evidence as to the content and conduct of the disciplinary process after 19 July 2004 and as to other matters surrounding what went on between the parties after that date. Mr Royston wanted to adduce evidence as to those matters and to cross-examine on the basis of that evidence. It was his case that it threw light on the real reason for the decision to dismiss him on 19 July. The Tribunal, having set out the findings which we have recited or summarised at paragraphs5.1 and5.2 of their judgment, said this at paragraph 5.3:
"We therefore restricted the extent of evidence which was adduced by both parties about the content and" conduct of the disciplinary process and appeal after 19 July 2004 because it was not relevant to the issues we identified in relation to the Claimant's dismissal (see paragraph 4.1 and 4.2 above)"
. The Arguments And Our Conclusions[23]Ms Barney's Notice of Appeal, on behalf of Mr Royston, contain six grounds. We will address them in the order in which they appear in the Notice. Grounds 3, 4 and 5 have been taken together, both in the parties' Skeleton Arguments and in the course of the argument before us today. The First Ground[24]Ms Barney submits that the Tribunal erred in law in concluding at paragraph 5.1 of their judgment that the Claimant was dismissed on 19 July 2004, rather than that he was dismissed when his contracted terminated on 8 October 2004. This error, if made, we suspect she agrees, would as a freestanding error not make very much difference to the case overall, but she submits that this error lies behind and provides the backdrop to the Tribunal's exclusion of evidence as to what occurred after 19 July. We do not accept that the Tribunal made any such error of law. We agree that the Tribunal might, or might not, have expressed themselves more clearly in paragraph 5.1; but there is no error of law in the Tribunal's concession that Mr Royston was dismissed on 19 July 2004 by a letter which told him that his employment would end on 8 October 2004.[25]When someone is given a letter of dismissal or is orally told that he is dismissed, it is commonplace to describe the giving of the letter or the delivery of the oral message to the employee that his contract is to come to an end as dismissal. Indeed, while, of course in the case of a summary dismissal, the employee is dismissed without notice so that the informing of the employee that his contract is at an end and the effective termination of that contract are coincident, where notice is given, we would respectfully suggest that is habitual for lay people and lawyers to say that the employee, on the day on which he is given notice that his contract is to come to an end has been dismissed on notice. The Tribunal was saying no more than that in paragraph 5.1 or in the similar words which they used in paragraph 6.1. It cannot be suggested, and Ms Barney has not sought to suggest that the Tribunal were not fully aware that the employment itself did not end until 8 October. We can see no error of law in paragraph 5.1. The Second Ground[26]We turn, therefore, to ground 2. By that ground, Ms Barney submits that the Tribunal erred in law in refusing to admit any evidence about what happened after 19 July (the ruling to which we have referred in paragraph 22 above). In fact, the Tribunal did not strictly adhere to that ruling because, as we have said, they set out in brief terms the history of the disciplinary process to its send, but there is no doubt that Mr Royston wished to go into much more detail than that recorded by the Tribunal and was not permitted to do so.[27]It is common ground between the parties that, as a matter of principle, evidence as to what happens after a decision to dismiss has been made and has been communicated to the employee may be admissible when proceedings for unfair dismissal are before the Tribunal. The position is described briefly and accurately in Harvey Volume 1 paragraph D1/1044 in these terms:
"Events which occurred during the notice of dismissal or which emerge in the appeal process may have an impact on whether or not the employer has acted reasonably in all the circumstances"
. We would add to that that evidence of such events may also have an impact on what was the true reason for the employee's dismissal. Examples of such evidence being admitted are to be found in the cases of Williamson v Alcan (UK) Ltd [1977] IRLR 303 and Inner London Education Authority v Lloyd [1981] IRLR 394; it is not difficult to think up other examples of how such evidence may arise and might become admissible.[28]In so far as the Tribunal decided as a matter of principle that evidence of events which occurred after 19 July could never be admissible, that was, in our judgment, in error and was inconsistent with the principle which we have just set out and as to which both Ms Barney and Mr Walker are agreed. However, it is plainly not sufficient for Mr Royston to make out that the Tribunal approached this question of admissibility on a false basis. He has also to show that if the Tribunal had applied the principle correctly, they would or should have admitted evidence which might have made some difference to the issue which the Tribunal had to determine, namely whether the reason for dismissal for redundancy was put forward in bad faith and as a sham; and in order to do that, it is necessary for us to consider what were the pieces of evidence which Mr Royston would have wanted to put forward and to cross-examine on and whether those pieces of evidence would or might have made any substantial difference to the case.[29]Ms Barney has set out for us what pieces of evidence fall, as she submits, within that rubric. There are five of them. They were: 1) on 22 July, the allegations of gross misconduct and gross negligence were dropped, that being very shortly after the dismissal letter, 2) the results of the disciplinary proceedings notified to Mr Royston on 11 August were that there was no finding of gross misconduct or gross negligence but, instead, a finding that he was guilty of a lesser offence – insufficient control of his unit – without any charge to that effect having ever been levelled, 3) there were shortcomings in the procedure which existed before 19 July, namely delay, Mr Royston's suspension without a letter and without reasons, and the investigation was incomplete, which were persisted in after 19 July. What we have just recited is not necessarily a complete list of his complaints about the procedure, but the flavour of his complaints is there contained, 4) there was a lack of clarity and a persisting lack of clarity in the allegations made against him in the disciplinary proceedings and 5) at the hearing of his appeal to Mr Davies, it is alleged that Mr Davies spoke to Mr Royston in a humiliating, antagonising and ridiculing way. It is not necessary to go into the details. They are set out at paragraph 35 of Mr Royston's witness statement.[30]Ms Barney submits that all of this was material to Mr Royston's case, that the redundancy was a sham and the disciplinary proceedings were a sham; that the Tribunal ought to have seen the process from beginning to end holistically (our word, not Ms Barney's) over the whole of the relevant period in order to be able to assess the real force and real strength of Mr Royston's case and that the Tribunal wrongly disabled themselves by their ruling at paragraph 5.3, from hearing the whole of his case put in cross-examination and supported by his evidence.[31]Mr Walker submitted that the Tribunal made a case management decision in pursuance of their wide powers which should not be overturned unless the Tribunal are shown to have made a plain error of law and that they did not make any such error because they excluded nothing which was potentially of any relevance or materiality to Mr Royston's case. We agree that the circumstances in which the Employment Tribunal can or should overturn a case management decision must be rare. However, any a priori approach to the admissibility of evidence of events after a dismissal letter, without considering the substance of the evidence which it is sought to adduce, would have been wrong.[32]It is, as we see it, for Ms Barney to persuade us that the Tribunal, if it did make that mistake, would or should, had it approached matters properly, have admitted the items of evidence to which we have referred and that those items of evidence or any one of them could have made a material difference to Mr Royston's case.[33]In our judgment, whether Mr Royston's case is viewed on the basis as it is described by Ms Barney or on the basis as it is described by Mr Walker, none of the five items of evidence would or could be regarded as having the potential materiality which we have described. We take each of the five items separately. First of all, in relation to 22 July, Ms Barney has not been able to show us that there was any evidence at all that anything happened on that day which amounted to a withdrawal of the cases of gross misconduct or gross negligence which had been brought. What did happen on that day was that the disciplinary hearing occurred in front of Miss Wright. There is a suggestion to that effect in the Originating Application but it is not supported by Mr Royston's witness statement. This point does not appear to us to have any force.[34]Secondly, the result of the disciplinary proceedings could not, in our judgment, possibly have affected the position. The result was that Mr Royston was, in effect, acquitted of gross misconduct and gross negligence but found guilty on lesser charges. That, in no way, indicates or could be taken by a reasonable Tribunal to indicate either that the original charges were trumped up, as opposed to having little merit, or still less that the redundancy was a sham. It is noticeable, that when the redundancy appeared, Symphony put the disciplinary hearings "on hold" and were apparently not proposing to pursue them. That is not something which, it seems to us, could possibly be the subject of criticism. When Mr Royston asked that they be revived, they were revived; there was a full hearing which came to the conclusions which we have summarised. There was no reason at all why new charges had to be preferred. The allegations made by Mr Whitehouse were of shortcomings in the production department within Mr Royston's department; it was not necessary for new allegations to be made setting out something of less seriousness than that which had originally been charged.[35]Thirdly, we turn to shortcomings in the procedure. All the shortcomings in procedure that we have been taken to preceded 19 July. Some of them may have persisted thereafter. The allegation of delay could not be said to have persisted thereafter because the disciplinary hearing was actually held on 22 July. We see nothing here of any materiality which would have assisted Mr Royston's claims.[36]Fourthly, lack of clarity in the allegations. The allegations were set out in the e-mail from Mr Whitehouse, the contents of which we have already described in detail. There was nothing in any complaint of lack of clarity in the allegations.[37]Fifthly, the appeal hearing. Mr Walker told us that there is a transcript of the appeal hearing which was not in evidence before the Tribunal and is, hardly surprisingly, not before us; he told us that because he wanted to make it clear that it was not accepted on behalf of Symphony that what Mr Royston has described in paragraph 35 of his witness statement actually occurred. But we will put that on one side because Mr Royston would have given evidence along the lines of paragraph 35; whether that evidence was going to be disputed or not. What does that evidence amount to? It shows that Mr Davies was condescending and offensive towards Mr Royston; but there is no suggestion that Mr Davies had been involved in any way earlier in what had happened between Symphony and Mr Royston. What is alleged to have passed in that meeting could not possibly amount, in our judgment, to evidence that Mr Davies was involved in a conspiracy. The Tribunal found as fact that there was no conspiracy; and they found that fact inter alia on the basis of Mr Royston's own evidence that he did not say that the persons involved in his case in Symphony were acting together. That being so, we do not see how evidence about what happened at the appeal hearing could have had any affect on Mr Royston's case so as to make that case stronger.[38]Accordingly, for those reasons, we reject ground 2. Third, Fourth and Fifth Grounds[39]We turn, therefore, to grounds 3, 4 and 5 which were taken together, as we have already described. Those grounds amount to this: that the Tribunal should not have excluded the evidence of Mr Patterson and Mr de Silva. In so far as the Tribunal excluded them on the basis that the exchange was late, that in itself would not have provided an adequate reason because there was, as we have said, no order in relation to exchange; and indeed, the parties had agreed to exchange witness statements on 14 March. However, it is clear to us that what the Tribunal saw in those statements was(a) a series of allegations about safety and health practices at the relevant unit which, it is common ground, had not been raised in the Originating Application or in any correspondence prior to the exchange of witness statements and(b) material which would not appear to have been directly relevant to any issue between the parties.[40]Ms Barney submits that, in each witness statement, there is material content. She does not contend that the general bulk of either statement, which goes to health and safety practices or how things went downhill in Mr Royston's unit after he had left, should be admitted. We need, therefore, to examine the specific aspects of those witness statements which, it is said, should have been admitted. On 18 April, in this e-mail to which we have referred in paragraph 8 of this judgment, Mr Whitehouse made the allegation that there had been no saw operator after 4pm on the relevant Friday. He also made the allegation that a different saw, called a Steffani, had run out of work.[41]At the investigatory meeting on 29 April, Mr Royston admitted that there was a period of two hours or so on the Friday afternoon in which there was no experienced man to work the Giben saw which was, apparently, key to production flow. He explained that he himself had gone home at 3 o'clock but all the experienced men who could work that machine were not available and it seems that an inexperienced man, Mr Patterson, was put on the machine, after Mr Royston had gone home and without his knowledge.[42]Mr Royston said that he had made arrangements to make up the loss on the Saturday. Ultimately, the decision in the disciplinary proceedings on this issue was that Mr Royston had admitted that there was no cover on the Friday afternoon for a period of two hours on the Giben saw and that that was a shortcoming in Mr Royston's management of the unit because it was his job to ensure that such cover had been available. He was not accused and not found guilty of putting an inexperienced man on the saw.[43]Mr Patterson's witness statement describes that he was asked to work on the saw on the Friday afternoon by a charge hand at around 4.15pm (i.e. after Mr Royston had gone home), there being no else to do so. Mr Patterson described that he had insufficient training to work on that saw.[44]In our judgment, the Tribunal were correct or at least were acting properly within their case management powers in excluding this evidence as they did. The complaint against Mr Royston was not that there Mr Patterson had been dangerously put on the saw, but that there was no proper cover for the saw, which Mr Royston admitted. If Mr Royston had denied that there had been the absence of proper cover and it was capable of being established that there had been proper cover, then it might be that Mr Royston's case might have been assisted by what Mr Patterson had to say (although we might legitimately doubt even that); but that was not the case. The evidence of Mr Patterson could not have helped in the circumstances to establish either that the disciplinary proceedings as a whole or this part of the disciplinary proceedings were trumped up or had no merit or that the redundancy was a sham. Thus, whether the Tribunal approached this question of evidence on the right basis or not (and in our judgment they did approach it on the right basis) the evidence of Mr Patterson, in the parts which Ms Barney submits were admissible, would not have been of any relevance and should not have been admitted.[45]Mr de Silva's evidence consisted, to a large extent, of general comments about how Mr Royston ran the department and how things were not so well run after Mr Royston left. Ms Barney makes the specific point that, in the middle of his statement, Mr de Silva says that the factory was safe to work in because Mr Royston always left the men lots of notes to do with the work and targets and never made the men pick up three metre tops on their own. Ms Barney submits that that is material because, in the disciplinary proceedings, Mr Royston was criticised for allowing the Steffani saw to run out of work, for not giving the charge hands specific instructions in relation to the Steffani saw, and not giving the charge hands specific instructions generally.[46]Mr de Silva's evidence has got nothing to do, so far as one can tell, with the Steffani saw. He is talking about picking up worktops. It has nothing to do with instructions to charge hands. Whether Mr Royston left the men lots of notes to do with the work would not have been relevant in any way to the criticisms that were made in relation to the Steffani saw under sub-paragraph (D) of Mr Whitehouse's allegations as to what he found on the Friday. We do not see how Mr de Silva's evidence could have had any effect on the strength or otherwise of Mr Royston's case as he wished to develop it before the Tribunal.[47]For those reasons, grounds 3, 4 and 5 fail. Sixth Ground[48]Finally, Ms Barney in ground 6 submits that the Tribunal's reasons for rejecting Mr Royston's case are not set out so as to comply with the standards for decisions laid down by in the well-known cases of Meek v City of Birmingham District Council [1987] IRLR 250 , Tran v Greenwich Vietnam Community [2002] IRLR 735 and English v Emery Reimbold & Strick Ltd [2003] IRLR 710 . We do not propose in this judgment to go through the relevant extracts from those three authorities with which we, in the Employment Appeal Tribunal, are entirely familiar. Indeed, we have not been taken to those passages. Nor have we been asked to consider whether the standards laid down in those judgments have been overtaken by Rule 30(6) of Schedule 1 to the Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Procedure) Regulations 2004 - an issue which has been canvassed in the course of various hearings before the Employment Appeal Tribunal in recent months. It is not necessary for us to say any more about the law. What is necessary is that we look at the judgment of the Tribunal.[49]Ms Barney submits that the first sentence of paragraph 6.1 of that judgment on is not sufficient to be an adequate explanation to Mr Royston as to why his case that the redundancy reason was a sham was rejected. Standing alone, that might be so, but it does not stand alone. The Tribunal, having directed themselves in paragraph 4 to the relevant issues, turned in paragraph 5 to make findings of fact upon those issues. In paragraphs 5.4 and 5.5, they made findings of fact. They explained why they made them. In particular, they explained that they regarded as true Mr Whitehouse's evidence about how the commercial decision that the unit could be run without a dedicated manager was reached. They said "Mr Whitehouse credibly explained to us"; that means that they accepted his evidence. They went on in paragraph 5.6 to set out that their conclusions in paragraph 5.4 were supported by what Mr Royston had himself said, namely that because he was absent from work, he was unable to take a view as to whether his post was redundant and that he had no reason to question the fact that his post was redundant.[50]Mr Royston must have known from his own experience from within his own unit whether it was arguable that the unit could not be run without him or someone in his position. Yet he gave the answers that he did; and the Tribunal were entitled to rely on those answers. They have set out a further reason why they came to the conclusions in paragraph 6.[51]They went on in paragraph 6.2 also to explain why the conspiracy argument was rejected. The conspiracy argument was important because the history which we have set out is such that what is alleged to have been a sham and to have been maintained as a sham from the time that redundancy first arose to the time when Mr Davies was engaged with Mr Royston could not have occurred without there being some kind of concerted action or concerted plan between managers in Symphony. Yet Mr Royston abandoned those allegations, the Tribunal said with some justification, when he said that he did not say that those managers were acting together. There is another reason explained by the Tribunal for the conclusion that Mr Royston's case failed.[52]In these circumstances, the Tribunal's judgment was entirely sufficient to explain to Mr Royston why he had lost, and the reasons were entirely sufficient to satisfy the requirements of the authorities and for that matter, were it to have been raised, of Rule 30(6). It was, in our judgment, not necessary for the Tribunal to go through each allegation that Mr Royston had made and to reject each one individually and explain why they were rejected.[53]For those reasons, ground 6 of this appeal also fails. Conclusion[54]The appeal fails and is dismissed.