Costs of tribunal amd chances of sucess

Hello.
Can anyone advise what the typical costs involved in taking an unfair dismissal case to tribunal for an employee?
I'd also like an insight as to whether it is worth me taking my company to tribunal or not. Here is a summary of my grievance:

I am the only one selected for redundancy from a pool of approx 8 people (company size 1700).
The selection was made through a scoring matrix process. I have appealed against my selection but the company dismissed the appeal.
I believe the selection criteria subject to opinion in at least 4 of the 8 categories and not quantifiable. When the company appeal team responded to my grievance in this area, they said that my complaint in two of the categories was not even investigated as "it was people's perceptions of what happened at that at that time" - a case of my word against the management which the could not conclusively investigate further.

For example, the company scored me very low due to an alleged breakdown in relationship between myself and another member of staff. While I believe the only potential "conflict" with this staff member was part of the natural highs and lows of work as I get on with this individual well. However, management have another view. I asked if they had spoken to the other member of staff for their opinion and they had not. I have several other examples like this but wish to keep the post brief. If it is relevant, one category I contested they removed from the scoring matrix at the appeal but still claimed I had the lowest score overall.

In addition I questioned the redundancy process in that I was the only member of staff consulted and selected. With <20 redundancies I understand the legal position is different but can the company limit the consultation to the one they have decided to make redundant? The company's view is they did not consult the pool to avoid low moral and unrest.

I also questioned the pool selection. At my initial consultation meeting, I was told all grades of staff sharing my job title were in the pool. Yet at the appeal meeting, I was told only lower grades were in the pool as the top grade "had additional years experience" which the company wanted to retain. I countered that this was not justified as I knew of a recently promoted staff member who has been at the top grade for <6 months and his experience in the profession was only three years compared with my 20 years. They said they would look at this but nothing would change. Can the company claim a change in the pool like this?

Any advice is appreciated and thank you in advance.

(a) The costs of a tribunal are anything between almost nothing - do it yourself; and in excess of £20k for a full legal team (more for complex cases). And all points in between those figures

(b) I cannot say whether it is "worth" a tribunal or whether you stand a reasonable propsect of success based on a limited amount of information from one viewpoint only. What I can say is that your arguments are not as strong as you may think. It is not uncommon to include what people perceive as subjective criteria (but which the law does not consider to such) such as "teamwork", "staff relationships" etc. Yhese are legitimate things to consider. You may disagree with the way this was scored, but rovided that the same yarstick was applied to all staff then there is no unfairness in law. The fact that one category was removed at appeal lends credence to an appeal process which was fairly and equitably entered into, in that concessions to your argument were made - you still scored the lowest score though.

A stronher point is failure to consult all staff in the pool, but this is a technicality. A flaw in the process may be discounted if the result would otherwise have still been the same.

If a particular grade is excluded from selection then anyone in that grade, however long they have been in it, is also excluded. So yes, that point is fair.


The points you have raised are reasonable to consider (with the exception of the last one I feel) - so I have limited myself to pointing out that they may equally considered to not be arguable, Putting the other point of view. There are merits, based on this short synopsis, to both sides of the argument and that is probably the best I can do for you. If you made a claim I do not see that you would be at peril of a deposit order or costs - but I could not call it on your prospects of winning.