Insight from an HR consultant in Suffolk on what a recent whistleblowing tribunal case means for your business, and why the financial stakes are about to rise.
I’ve been working with a few clients recently who’ve had employees raise concerns about a colleague or a manager.
The instinct is almost always the same: deal with it quickly, keep the client happy, move on.
But a recent tribunal case shows exactly how costly that instinct can be. An employer ended up paying over £66,000 because they dismissed someone who raised legitimate concerns, and the tribunal tore their process apart.
From January 2027, cases like this could cost even more. Let me walk you through what happened and what you can take from it.
The case: an engineer dismissed for speaking up
Andrew Estcourt was a chief engineer who kept flagging that his new manager lacked the technical competence needed for the role. Instead of looking into those concerns properly, the business decided he was being difficult. They called him obstructive and unsupportive.
When the client on the project asked for Estcourt to be removed, the employer went along with it. He was dismissed.
The tribunal found 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 a complete disregard for fair process.
Where it went wrong
There were several failures here, but I want to focus on the ones I see most often with the businesses I support through our HR consultancy services in Suffolk.
Relying on SOSR without proper evidence
The employer used something called SOSR (some other substantial reason) as the grounds for dismissal. It’s a legitimate category, but only when you can back it up with solid evidence and a thorough investigation. You can’t lean on it just because the situation feels uncomfortable. Without that foundation, it falls apart at tribunal.
Treating a client request as a reason to dismiss
A client asking you to take someone off a project is a commercial issue. It doesn’t give you a fair reason to end that person’s employment. You still need to look at alternatives. Could the employee be moved to a different project? Could the relationship be managed differently? Jumping straight to dismissal without exploring other options left this employer exposed.
Missing the whistleblowing angle
Estcourt’s concerns about his manager’s competence weren’t just grumbles. Because they touched on safety and legal compliance, they qualified as protected disclosures under whistleblowing law. Dismissing someone for making a protected disclosure is automatically unfair. It doesn’t matter how tidy the paperwork looks.
Running two processes with the same people
The grievance process and the dismissal process were happening at the same time, with the same decision-makers involved in both. That created a serious impartiality problem. If someone has raised a grievance, the person handling that grievance cannot also be the one deciding whether to dismiss them.
What you should be doing differently
Whether your team is small or spread across multiple sites, the principles are the same.
– Investigate first. When an employee raises a concern, take it seriously before taking any other action. Don’t jump to conclusions about their motives.
– Separate your processes. If a grievance has been raised, keep the people involved in that process away from decisions about the employee’s future. Independence matters.
– Don’t let a client dictate your HR decisions. You can absolutely respond to a client’s request, but that response needs to be proportionate. Removing someone from a project is one thing. Ending their employment is another entirely.
– Understand what counts as a protected disclosure. If an employee raises concerns about health, safety or legal compliance, those concerns may well be protected. Acting against that person because of what they’ve raised puts you in a very difficult position legally.
– If you’re considering SOSR, make sure you can evidence it. It needs to stand up to scrutiny. A vague feeling that someone is being awkward won’t cut it.
Why this is going to matter even more from 2027
Right now, there’s a statutory cap on what tribunals can award in most unfair dismissal cases. From January 2027, that cap is being removed.
That means cases like this one, where the award was already over £66,000, could result in far higher payouts. The financial risk of getting a dismissal wrong is going up. And for a smaller business, that kind of exposure can be genuinely damaging.
Some questions worth asking yourself
If you’re running a business with employees, it’s worth pausing to think about how you’d handle a situation like this.
– If an employee raised a concern about their manager tomorrow, do you have a clear process for investigating it?
– Are the people who handle grievances in your business separate from those who make decisions about someone’s role or employment?
– Would your managers know the difference between a standard complaint and something that could be a protected disclosure?
– If a client asked you to remove someone from a project, would you know what steps to take before making any decisions about that person’s job?
Get the right support before you act
If you’re dealing with a tricky employee situation right now, whether it’s a complaint about a manager, a client issue, or a performance concern, please do get advice before you make any decisions.
It’s so much easier (and cheaper) to get the process right from the start than to unpick it afterwards.
As an outsourced HR consultant in Suffolk, I work with businesses just like yours to make sure these situations are handled properly and fairly.
If you’d like to talk something through, get in touch. I’m always happy to have a conversation and help you figure out the best way forward.
