In July the Employment Appeal Tribunal gave a judgment confirming that an employer has a wide degree of flexibility in choosing the pools for selection in a redundancy process (Lomond Motors Ltd v Clark) One accountant was responsible for both branches in the west region. There were two accountants, including Mr Clark, for the east. Lomond Motors decided to reduce its staffing so that there would be just one branch accountant in the east responsible for both dealerships in the east. This obviously meant that one of the accountant's positions would be redundant. There was always going to be a choice for the appellant company in deciding how to create pools. Lomond Motors had four car dealerships, two in the west of Scotland and two in the east. Mr Clark originally worked as a branch accountant in the west but by the time that he was dismissed he worked in the east. The EAT disagreed with the Tribunal and declared the dismissal to be fair, The EAT pointed out that the question that a Tribunal must consider in these circumstances is whether the method and selection were such as could have been determined by a reasonable employer: different people can quite properly form different views about what is fair in any given situation: so, the employer therefore has a wide measure of flexibility to determine the appropriate pool. Lomond Motors' chosen pool was within the range of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer. The case acts as an important reminder that, provided employers can show that they have genuinely considered how the pools from which employees will be selected for redundancy are formed and provided that their decision can be seen to be reasonable even though there are other ways of selecting pools, they will not for that reason have acted unfairly.
The company used a selection pool consisting only of the two branch accountants in the east and it was Mr Clark who was selected for redundancy. His claim for unfair dismissal was based on an argument that the selection pool should have comprised all three branch accountants, including the one in the west. The tribunal found in his favour. There were also arguments on which the tribunal misled itself relating to a mobility clause in Mr Clark’s contract.
