Claimant v Buckinghamshire Council

Tribunal found that none of the alleged breaches of the implied term of trust and confidence were made out. The claimant was not allocated excessive or disproportionately complex workload, was not unfairly criticised for poor quality family support plans which were objectively deficient, and was reasonably placed on a performance improvement plan. Individually or cumulatively, the respondent's conduct could not be said to be calculated or likely to destroy or seriously damage trust and confidence.

Tribunal found that the claimant did not establish facts from which discrimination could be inferred. Her workload was not excessive, the hospital visit request was based on her being the allocated caseworker, concerns about safeguarding were investigated and the claimant was given opportunity to respond, and criticism of her family plans and performance improvement plan were justified by her objectively poor performance in creating SMART plans. No evidence of less favourable treatment because of race.

As the tribunal found no breach of the implied term of trust and confidence establishing constructive dismissal under s95(1)(c) ERA 1996, there was no dismissal and therefore the unfair dismissal claim could not succeed.

The direct race discrimination claims related to workload allocation, being required to do a hospital visit, criticism at a school meeting, criticism of family plans, and the performance improvement plan. In each case, the tribunal found either that the facts alleged did not occur or that there was a clear non-discriminatory explanation. The claimant provided no evidence of why the actions should be construed as discriminatory beyond her belief that white colleagues would have been treated differently.