



The EAT has held that an employee’s redundancy dismissal was unfair where the employer failed to carry out meaningful workforce consultation at a formative stage.
The respondent company carried out a scoring exercise using a standard set of subjective criteria. The claimant scored lowest in out of three in his pool. The respondent then met with the claimant three times before dismissing for redundancy. No consultation took place with the workforce prior to the scoring exercise.
The EAT held that there was a clear absence of consultation at the formative stage, which meant there was no opportunity to discuss different approaches to any aspect of the employer’s redundancy process. The decision underlines the importance of appropriate workforce consultation, even where collective consultation obligations are not triggered.
De Bank Haycocks v ADP RPO UK Ltd [2023] EAT 129