I don't think I tried to claim the moral high ground. I believe the action taken against my wife is unreasonable and I'm just looking for any means possible to contest the decision. If they don't have a proper reason then how can they demonstrate they haven't discriminated? If they can provide a proper reason then fair enough.

The allocated Partner is junior to the person who raised the claims, conducted the so-called investigation and presided over the initial meeting. This also happened to call the head of my wife's department during the outcome meeting to ask if she was fired yet. So I agree with your condone comment. Hence why I am trying to highlight the sham it is through other processes.

Chapter 15 on Enforcement (see below) indicate that they have an obligation to investigate it thoroughly. At a minimum someone will have to ask the Partner to justify her complaint - which so far she has failed to provide any evidence of other than her opinion. 15.5 A worker who has a complaint under the Act should, as far as possible, seek to raise the complaint with the employer in the first instance. To avoid a claim proceeding to the Employment Tribunal, the employer should investigate thoroughly any allegations of a breach of the Act. This would enable the employer to determine whether there is any substance to the complaint and, if so, whether it can be resolved to the satisfaction of the parties. 15.6 A worker who has a complaint under the Act may request information from their employer about the reason for the treatment which is the subject of the complaint. This is known as the procedure for obtaining information and it is additional to other means of obtaining information under the Employment Tribunal rules. 15.9 The questions procedure is a way for workers to obtain information when they believe they have been subjected to conduct which is unlawful under the Act but do not have sufficient information to be sure. It could also assist the worker in their decision about how to proceed with the complaint. The questions and any answers are admissible in evidence in tribunal proceedings.

What I am trying to achieve with the race discrimination claim is for this decision to be properly scrutinised during the appeal process. That is someone Senior to the Partner has to ask the question during the appeal process as to whether the disciplinary process would seem to be fair in the eyes of an employment tribunal. The following example is taken directly from section 10.14 of equality act 2010. Swap references of sexuality for nationality. Example: An employer decides not to confirm a transsexual employee’s employment at the end of a six months probationary period because of his poor performance. The employee is consequently dismissed. Yet, at the same time, the employer extends by three months the probationary period of a non-transsexual employee who has also not been performing to standard. This could amount to direct discrimination because of gender reassignment, entitling the dismissed employee to bring a claim to the Employment Tribunal. Seems clear to me that they would have to demonstrate that everyone on the same disciplinary process was given the same treatment of dismissal. would it not?

what if she were to raise the issue of her nationality as being the basis of discrimination this would this count as a protected act? Is it then the case that company would have to demonstrate how the decision was reached and that it was properly documented? If, as we clearly suspect, the partner has no actual evidence of under performance other than opinion then they would surely struggle to do this?

I fully understand what you mean by the safe and morally just path. I also know are not sugar coating and I appreciate that approach. please bear with me. I just want to know if there is the slightest angle we can still take on this. An action plan was never put to my wife. It went straight to dismissal. She has been told informally by a senior person in her department that the partner stated that she was going to be dismissed prior to her actually having the first disciplinary meeting. Does this matter at all. My wife is German, does this give her grounds for arguing that it is based on this? Based on her current performance measures there can be no reasonable explanation for dismissing her other than the partner wanted her out.

thanks for the quick reply. perhaps I've misunderstood you but the 14 page rebuttal was in defence on my wife not against. are you saying in a legal sense, the partner can just dismiss without having to provide any evidence? If they think it an appropriate decision then so be it? can you clarify what you mean about the action plan?

The decision meeting was today and she was informed that she has been dismissed with three months notice. In summary, no informal verbal or written indications to under performance were provided prior to receiving notification of the disciplinary meeting. This letter stated that the reason for the disciplinary meeting was due her performance metrics. My wife has provided evidence that she is meeting or exceeding all relevant performance measures. The letter also included provided four brief written statements of a highly general and subjective nature. During the disciplinary meeting, my wife asked for evidence to back up these. The partner could only provide verbal examples some of which were pointed out were clearly the responsibility of other people. My wife requested time to provide evidence against these claims now she was more aware of their nature. The meeting notes from the disciplinary meeting were not provided despite her requesting them. During this time my wife submitted a 14 page document providing evidence that rebutted all these points and demonstrated that she was performing at a good standard. The outcome meeting was this morning. The partner said that she had reviewed the evidence, she felt she was under performing, that the partner did not have time to get her up to the required level and therefore she was going to dismiss her. To date no specific written and substantiated evidence has been provided for this reasoning. It appears solely based on the partners opinion. Can this result in a straight dismissal without warning? I have phoned ACAS. They appear of the view that unless the internal appeal is successful then she has no grounds for challenging this legally. This is because she has only worked there since March this year. Can anyone with an informed view confirm this? She is not pregnant btw.

Glad to see this has generated a lot of debate. Just to confirm neither my wife or her performance manager were aware of any concerns of underperformance either verbally or in writing prior to receiving the letter of disciplinary action. She had the disciplinary meeting today. The Partner did not provide any documented evidence that my wife had failed to meet any of the performance measures that were agreed with her line manager. In contrast, my wife provided a document showing that she was meeting or exceeding all measures. As it was clearly stated in the disciplinary letter that she was identified as underpeforming based on these measures, does this then indicate that it was an unfair process? The Partner focused on the bullet points . Again no documented evidence was provided just verbal statements. Some of the points she raised as performance issues were actually the responsibility of other, more senior, people on the team. When challenged on these points she retracted some and on others said that she may have got the round end of the stick or may not have had the full facts'. To me, this indicates that she has not performed a proper investigation prior to calling the formal disciplinary meeting and therefore indicates that it was an unfair process. The Partner asked that my wife provide any evidence that would despute her claim of underperformance and they will make a decision on Monday. However, the Partner and HR have said that they will not provide the notes taken at the meeting. Therefore all my wife has is the original letter, which had only very general claims open to wide interpretations and her and her meeting companions notes, which may or may not tally up with what the HR representative jotted down. Doesn't seem an appropriate way of doing things to me. Obviously I'm only giving my wifes side of things but on the assumption that the above statement are true, does it appear that my wife has a strong case for claiming that the process has been unfair to this point?

My wife works for a large Accountancy firm. On Monday afternoon she received a letter, from the Partner heading her team, stating that the company were conducting a performance review and based on the companies performance metrics she had been highlighted as under-performing in one or more areas. The letter did not provide any specific examples or any supporting evidence of this claim. The letter then stated that she was to attend a formal disciplinary meeting. Below this were three points listing general claims of under-performance such as not undertaking work in a timely manner, not managing the workload of team adequately, poor commercial management. Again no specific examples or supporting evidence were provided for these claims. My wife is completely shocked by the letter as neither she or her line manager has received any verbal or written feedback to indicate that she is underperforming. In fact she is actually meeting or exceeding all of the performance metrics agreed in her last performance meeting. She actually received a bonus for her performance a few months back! Basically she feels the reason for the letter is that she challenged the recent targets set by the Partner as being unrealistic given the level of resources and staffing at her teams disposal. This was two weeks ago. A senior member of her department told confidentially told my wife that she was not on the original underperformance list but appeared on it last week. The last paragraph of the letter states that "“these performance measures are sufficiently serious that if not remedied in accordance with the targets stated above and in line with the time frame we will outline to you at the meeting, they could result in a formal warning in accordance with the Capability Policy and ultimately dismissal.” This being the case we strongly suspect that she has decided to pursue disciplinary action regardless of what my wife says during the meeting. A very large concern is she only joined the firm at the end of March this year and so I understand has v.little comeback should she face unfair disciplinary action. I would therefore appreciate any advice as how to best deal with this.