What a £66k tribunal case tells you about dismissals

Guidance from an HR consultant in Ipswich on what went wrong in a recent whistleblowing tribunal and why the financial stakes for employers are about to rise.

The rules around unfair dismissal compensation are changing from January 2027.

The statutory cap on what a tribunal can award is being removed entirely.

If you're running a small business and making people decisions without proper advice, the cost of getting it wrong is about to increase sharply.

A recent tribunal case shows exactly how quickly things can unravel. Here's what happened and what you can take from it.

What you should be doing before you dismiss anyone

Before we get into the detail of the case, let's start with the practical stuff. Because whether you employ five people or fifty, the same principles apply to you.

Take employee concerns seriously from the outset. If someone on your team raises an issue about a colleague or a manager, your first step should always be to investigate properly. Don't brush it off. Don't label the person as difficult. Look into it before you make any other decisions.

Don't confuse a client request with a fair reason to dismiss. If a client tells you they want someone taken off a project, that's a commercial matter. It doesn't hand you a ready-made justification for ending that person's employment. You still need to explore other options and follow a proper process.

Keep your grievance and dismissal processes separate. The people involved in handling a grievance should not be the same people deciding whether someone keeps their job. Mixing the two creates an impartiality problem that a tribunal will pick apart.

If you're relying on SOSR, make sure you can back it up. SOSR stands for "some other substantial reason" and it's a legitimate ground for dismissal in certain situations. But it needs solid evidence behind it. You can't use it as a convenient label when you don't have a clearer reason.

The case that cost an employer over £66,000

Andrew Estcourt worked as a chief engineer. He raised repeated concerns that his new manager lacked the engineering competence the role required.

Instead of looking into those concerns, the business decided he was being obstructive and unsupportive.

A client then asked for him to be removed from the project. The employer went along with that request and dismissed him.

The tribunal ruled the dismissal was automatically unfair on whistleblowing grounds. The total award came to £66,295 plus £1,800 in costs.

The HR team involved were criticised for showing a complete disregard for fair process.

Where the employer went wrong

There were several failures here, and they compound each other.

The employer chose SOSR as the reason for dismissal but didn't carry out a proper investigation or gather clear evidence to support it. SOSR requires substantial justification. Without that, it falls apart quickly under scrutiny.

They also treated the client's request to remove Estcourt from the project as if it were sufficient grounds for dismissal on its own. It wasn't. A client's preference doesn't override your obligation to follow a fair process, consider alternatives and make a properly reasoned decision.

Perhaps most critically, the concerns Estcourt raised about his manager weren't simply workplace complaints. Because they touched on competence in a role with safety and compliance implications, they qualified as protected disclosures under whistleblowing law. Dismissing someone because they've made a protected disclosure is automatically unfair. The quality of your process becomes irrelevant at that point.

On top of all that, the grievance Estcourt had raised and the dismissal decision were being handled at the same time, by the same people. That's a fundamental fairness problem.

Why the financial risk is growing

Right now, there's a statutory cap on compensation in most unfair dismissal cases. From January 2027, that cap is being removed.

A case like Estcourt's already cost the employer over £68,000 in total. Without a cap, future awards in similar situations could be considerably higher.

For a small business, that kind of exposure can be devastating. And it makes getting your processes right now even more important, before the rules change.

Questions worth asking yourself

If you're reading this and wondering how your own business would hold up, here are a few things to consider:

• When was the last time you reviewed how employee concerns or complaints are handled in your business?

• If a client asked you to remove someone from a piece of work tomorrow, would you know the right steps to take before making any employment decisions?

• Are the people handling grievances in your business genuinely separate from those making decisions about roles and employment?

• Could any of the concerns your team have raised recently qualify as protected disclosures?

If you're unsure on any of those, it's worth getting some support sooner rather than later. HR consultancy services in Ipswich can help you put the right frameworks in place before a problem lands on your desk.

Let's have a conversation

If you've got a tricky employee situation brewing, or you just want to make sure your processes would stand up if challenged, I'm happy to talk it through.

As an outsourced HR consultant in Ipswich, I work with business owners to help them handle people issues properly and with confidence.

No pressure. No jargon. Just a straightforward conversation about where you are and what you might need.

Get in touch and let's book a quick discovery call.