Facts

Mr Medlycott was 60 years old. He worked at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as a Senior Operations Manager and was responsible for training healthcare professionals on the day to day operations of the civil service. He was employed as a grade seven (with grade six being a more senior grade). Mr Medlycott was in the ‘Classic’ pension scheme which paid workers an annual pension of 50% of the best of their last three years’ salary.

The DWP pays a ‘Responsibility Allowance’ to those who manage or supervise colleagues at the same grade for at least one day a week. The allowance is £2,000 per year and is pensionable. In 2018 Mr Medlycott applied to receive the Responsibility Allowance on the grounds that he supervised grade six healthcare professionals. He had not claimed it before but decided to do so when he realised it was pensionable. His application was denied because those he supervised were employed at a higher grade, not an equal grade, and he did not formally line manage them. He raised a grievance, which was not upheld. He appealed and the decision maker, Mr Griffiths (a grade five), acknowledged that Mr Medlycott ought to get the allowance, but that was not what the policy said and rejected the appeal.

Mr Medlycott claimed that the reason the DWP would not grant him the allowance was the increase which it would cause to his pension value and as such the decision was “materially influenced by his age”. He also argued that his grievance was not investigated properly because he was “an old man”. He brought claims of direct age discrimination and unlawful deductions from wages.

Decision

The Employment Tribunal (ET) asked Mr Medlycott to identify a comparator who he believed he had been treated less favourably than. Mr Medlycott named two colleagues who were grade six, but the ET held that their higher grade and the fact that they had formal line management responsibility for those they supervised were material differences in circumstances.

The ET allowed a hypothetical comparator to be considered instead. This hypothetical comparator would be someone just like Mr Medlycott, but who was 10/15 years younger and not “in striking distance of the final years” for the purposes of his pension. The ET held that it is unlikely that this hypothetical comparator would have received the allowance either. There were no facts from which the ET could judge that the reason for the refusal to pay him the allowance was in any way motivated by his age.  The ET also considered that any failure to investigate Mr Medlycott’s grievance was unrelated to age.

Accordingly, the burden of proof did not shift and the ET dismissed Mr Medlycott’s claim of age discrimination. The unlawful deductions from wages claim was similarly dismissed.

The judgment is available here.

Mr A Medlycott v Department for Work and Pensions: 2200880/2019