Claimant v The Chancellor Masters & Scholars of University of Oxford

The Tribunal found no evidence that the decision about the claimant's rate of pay was materially influenced by the claimant's Hungarian/German nationality. The respondent's policy for Clinical Research Fellows was to match NHS salary levels. The claimant was placed on E64.9 (£45,757) as she did not have an NHS consultant contract, which was a non-discriminatory reason applied equally regardless of nationality. There was no evidence that Stella Keeble or Carol Eaton were materially influenced by the claimant's nationality.

The claimant alleged that treating a German CCT as less than equivalent to NHS consultant training was a discriminatory PCP. However, the Tribunal found this was not the PCP actually applied. The respondent placed clinical fellows on E82 if they had NHS consultant status, or E64 if not, regardless of where their CCT was obtained. The claimant did not establish group disadvantage for those of her nationality. The claimant was placed on E64 because she did not have an NHS consultant contract, not because she had a German CCT. The pool for comparison would include British doctors with a CCT but no NHS consultant contract, who would also be placed on E64.

The Tribunal found no evidence that the claimant was subjected to a deduction from her wages. She was paid in accordance with her contractual entitlement at grade E64.9. The claimant's expectation that she should have been paid at consultant level (E82) was not contractually justified until she obtained an NHS honorary consultant position.