Immigration: Firm under obligations to record claimant’s start time
An employment tribunal has rejected claims from a paralegal that she was unfairly dismissed by her immigration firm for whistleblowing about client-care letters not being sent out.
Employment Judge KM Ross said it seemed “implausible” that The UK Law Firm Ltd dismissed Ms A Kolusheska for raising concerns about client-care letters when the firm told her “in no uncertain terms”, before any alleged disclosures, that client-care letters “must always be sent”.
The tribunal heard that Ms Kolusheska, who came to the UK as a sponsored skilled worker, was employed as a paralegal working on immigration applications at the Bolton firm’s small Manchester office between 6 July and 30 November 2023 – she had been working on a consultancy basis since October 2022.
The UK Law Firm is regulated by the Immigration Advice Agency.
The judge said there was no dispute that during the period when Maya Kalanoska, the paralegal’s line manager and a director of the firm, was away from the office because of her terminally ill mother that there was a delay in client-care letters being sent out.
“However, the claimant did not say in her protected disclosure described in the list of issues that client-care letters were being sent out late, nor did she suggest in cross-examination that sending client-care letters late was the disclosure. She suggested that they were not being sent at all.”
It was not disputed that Ms Kolusheska was dismissed on 30 November; the question was whether she had made protected disclosures.
The claimant argued that during a phone conversation in August 2023 with the absent Ms Kalanoska. she raised the need for client-care letters as “important to maintain the law firm’s integrity”.
However, Judge Ross said it seemed “completely implausible that the claimant herself having been told by Ms Kalanoska, a director in the respondent and the claimant’s line manager that she should always send a client care letter, should only a short time later inform the respondent that they should do this.”
The second alleged protected disclosure was contained in an email on 14 September, in which the claimant said she explained that an extension to the customer relationship management (CRM) system could be used to “overcome” the problem of generating client care letters.
The judge described this as “a positive and friendly email expressing gratitude to Ms Kolanska for permitting the claimant and the work experience intern to attend a live training session” on the system.
There was “nothing at all in the email” to alert the reader that this was a disclosure of information related to the firm’s failure to send client-care letters.
“The claimant has failed to show that either of her protected disclosures were protected within the meaning of Section 43B Employment Rights Act 1996.”
On causation, the judge said the alleged protected disclosures occurred in August and September 2023.
“They were therefore not close in time to the claimant’s dismissal in November 2023. It is difficult to understand why a respondent might want to dismiss the claimant for raising an issue about not sending client-care letters.”
The tribunal rejected too various detriments Ms Kolusheska claimed she suffered as a result of making her disclosures, such as being told to call her manager when arriving in the office.
The firm had to record her start and finish times at work as a condition of sponsoring her under the skilled sponsored workers scheme, and in any case “this was not an onerous requirement and cannot be regarded as a detriment”.
Ms Kolusheska also claimed she was unfairly dismissed for asserting a statutory right to be paid wages for overtime.
Judge KM Ross said the paralegal asked in November 2023 for overtime for the previous two months, confessing that she “had not kept track” of those hours.
“The respondent was an employer who was willing to pay overtime and had done so in the past, in fact it had paid more than the amounts sought by the claimant.
“This is not consistent with an employer who was prepared to dismiss the claimant because she had asked for an overtime payment. Therefore that claim also fails.”
The judge said the reasons the firm relied on for terminating Ms Kolusheska’s contract were “problems with the working relationship”, in particular that she “failed to respect and follow procedure and policy related to reporting attendance and punctuality”, while her performance had “not been to the standard expected.”
Ms Kalanoska, who dismissed the paralegal, said she “rarely started work at 9.30am and was frequently late”.
The judge added that Ms Kolusheska was “clearly distressed” about losing her job.
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