Tribunal dismisses complaints against Slough Borough Council

Allegations made by the former head of legal services at Slough Borough Council have been thrown out by a tribunal.

Amardip Healy, who resigned from the council in July last year, was not racially discriminated against, the tribunal ruled.

It also found she was not subjected to an unfair constructive dismissal.

Mrs Healy, who was head of legal services and the deputy monitoring officer from 2011, brought those claims among others to the tribunal, which was held in July and August.

The tribunal heard that in August 2016 an anonymous complaint was lodged against Mrs Healy’s conduct.

An investigation was started by Slough Borough Council and in turn, Mrs Healy complained in November 2016 that she had been subjected to bullying and intimidation and was being treated differently because of her race.

She further complained in February 2017 with more

allegations including general bullying and harassment and racial or religious discrimination.

Mrs Healy was suspended in March 2017 after an investigation into her conduct found she was bullying employees, after which she made further allegations of bullying and race or religious discrimination, suggesting ‘only Asian staff are subjected to this sort of treatment and not white staff’.

A further investigation also found she had ‘bullied and harassed members of the staff’ and used ‘language which is offensive, abusive and/or designed to intimidate and made unreasonable derogatory remarks’.

Mrs Healy then resigned in July and took her case to a tribunal.

Slough Borough Council was described in the tribunal’s report as ‘a local authority with multiple problems’ during the period covered by Mrs Healy’s evidence, with various senior officers, including Mrs Healy, in several disputes.

It noted the environment was described as ‘fraught’ and ‘tense’.

But the tribunal found there was ‘no direct evidence of race discrimination’ by

officers who had overseen and conducted an investigation into her conduct and dismissed the allegation.

The unfair constructive dismissal claim also failed after the tribunal ‘could not accept that there had been a breakdown of the term of trust and confidence’ between Mrs Healy and the council.

It also found she had not been victimised, not been subjected to unauthorised deductions of wages and her complaint of ‘protected disclosure detriment’, which relates to the right of a worker to disclose information about a serious allegation that is in the public interest and not suffer for it, also failed.