Scoring someone lower in a redundancy selection process if they do not have a degree can constitute indirect age discrimination, an employment tribunal has ruled, as a former Lidl employee was awarded £51,000 for unfair dismissal.
The employment tribunal in Sheffield ruled that Mr Norman, a senior construction consultant for Lidl, was indirectly discriminated against because the redundancy selection criteria included whether or not he had a degree or relevant qualification in construction.
At the time of his dismissal in March 2023, Norman was 63 years old and had worked for Lidl, building and refurbishing supermarkets, for 22 years.
He was told he was at risk of redundancy at a meeting in January 2023 and was placed in a pool of three construction consultants for one role that would continue post-restructure. The other two contenders for the role were both in their 30s.
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Norman asked if they would be interviewed for the remaining position, but was told by his line manager Mr Schofield they would not; there would be a scoring exercise and the decision would be final.
Norman was not successful and the role was given to his colleague, Mr Farcas.
Norman later learnt that he was “marked down” on the “knowledge criteria” because he didn’t have a relevant qualification.
The claimant produced statistical evidence to the tribunal of a range of qualifications possessed by the UK population broken down by age, which illustrated that people in their 60s were less likely to have a degree than those in their 30s.
The tribunal heard that Norman had felt “discredited” because he did not have a degree and “punished” for having grown up on a council estate without the opportunity to attend university.
The tribunal found that Schofield’s evidence as to “the significance of a qualification or lack of it” was not wholly consistent. He said that the claimant’s lack of degree played no part in his scoring and, if he had had any qualification in place, it wouldn’t have affected his scoring.
The judgment said: “On the evidence, it is an inescapable conclusion that the pleaded [criterion] was applied. However, it was, on the tribunal’s findings, the actual additional knowledge which Mr Farcas could apply in his role which was the point of differentiation in his scoring as against that of the claimant.
“Had the indirectly discriminatory factor been absent, they would have still (without any unlawful discrimination) have awarded the same scores to the claimant and Mr Farcas under the criterion of knowledge.”
However, the panel accepted that those over the age of 60 were less likely to have a degree, and as no defence to justify the qualification criterion was pursued, it found Norman suffered indirect age discrimination.
Not a sham
The judge found that the redundancy process was genuine and “not a sham” but concluded that the consultation process was not reasonable and, as such, rendered the dismissal unfair.
In a remedy judgment published last week, the tribunal ordered Lidl to pay Norman £46,300 in compensation for unfair dismissal, and a further £4,650 for injury to feelings because of indirect age discrimination.
The compensation was halved to reflect the Polkey principles, as there was a 50% chance that the Norman would have been fairly dismissed in any event.
Norman’s separate claim for direct age discrimination failed. The judgment said that, while the scoring assessment of the claimant might be challenged, the tribunal accepted that Lidl’s decision was genuinely based on their assessment of his abilities unrelated to his age.
“There is no evidence that they had in their minds, at all, any view as to the claimant’s likely longevity in his role or how his current or future performance might be affected by his age,” it said.
A further claim of age-related harassment, including a claim that a colleague had referred to him as “grandad”, also failed.
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