Royal Mail Group Ltd

Case Summary

Mr Brown, a postal worker at Royal Mail's Victoria Road depot in Glasgow, claimed that the respondent failed to properly deal with his flexible working request and subjected him to detriment for making it. The tribunal found the respondent complied with statutory obligations regarding the flexible working request procedure and that the alleged detrimental treatment did not occur.

The claimant failed to establish that the respondent breached its statutory obligations under section 80H of the Employment Rights Act 1996 in dealing with his flexible working request, as the employer provided adequate reasoning for the refusal and complied with the decision period requirements. The alleged acts of detriment under section 47E were not established on the evidence, as the manager did not act as alleged and any comments made were not done aggressively or on the ground of the flexible working request.

• •Whether respondent properly dealt with flexible working request under section 80H Employment Rights Act 1996
• •Whether claimant subjected to detriment for making flexible working request under section 47E Employment Rights Act 1996
• •Adequacy of employer's reasoning for refusing flexible working request
• •Compliance with statutory decision period for flexible working requests
• •Alleged aggressive conduct by manager in relation to flexible working request

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND) Case No: 8002580/2025 Held in Glasgow on 26 & 27 March 2026 Employment Judge Campbell Mr N Brown Claimant In Person Royal Mail Group Limited Respondent Represented by: Mr D Cormack, Solicitor JUDGMENT 1. The claimant’s legal complaints are unsuccessful and the claim is dismissed. Written Reasons Introduction 1. This was a full hearing in person over two days. The claimant represented himself and the respondent was represented by Mr Cormack. 2. On the first day of the hearing the claimant produced a written statement which he wished to be taken as his evidence in chief. After a short adjournment to consider this it was agreed that he could. He was cross- examined in the usual way. 3. Evidence on behalf of the respondents was heard from: a. Lee Bannerman – Customer Operations Manager; 8002580/2025 Page 2 b. Andrew Mullen, People Case Support Manager; and c. Kirstyn Campbell, Employee Relations Case Manager. 4. A joint bundle of documents was prepared. Numbers in square brackets below correspond to pages within it. The claimant requested to add some further documents during the hearing, which was agreed. 5. An agreed list of issues was also provided at the start of the hearing. There were essentially two separate complaints and those are considered in detail below. One was a claim under section 80H of the Employment Rights Act 1996 that the respondent had not properly dealt with his flexible working request (in the terminology of that section, a ‘contractual variation’) and the other was of detriment as a result of having made that request, under section 47E of the same Act. 6. It is noted here that the second of those complaints was added to the claim by way of an amendment application made on 26 November …