In Mental Health Care (UK) Ltd v Biluan and another, the EAT
considered whether it was fair to use a series of competency tests
normally used for the purposes of recruitment for a redundancy
selection procedure.
The claimants were employed at a hospital. In 2010 the hospital
decided to close a ward, resulting in 19 redundancies. The pool for
redundancies comprised all nursing and support staff. Three
criteria were included in the selection process: competency
assessment, disciplinary record, and sickness absence record. The
criteria were weighted, with the competency assessment being the
most important. This assessment was the same one used for the
hospital's recruitment process, involving a written test,
individual interviews and group exercises. It was conducted by HR
staff who did not know the employees, without input from their line
managers. Because of the relative weighting, in most cases the
competency assessment proved decisive. This produced some
surprising
