In Browne v Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust an employment tribunal has awarded an ex-divisional director nearly £1m in compensation for race discrimination following his dismissal by the Trust.

A tribunal found that Mr Browne, who is black and who was a divisional director at the NHS Trust, had been subjected to racial discrimination and had been unfairly dismissed. Although there were genuine concerns about Mr Browne’ performance, the Trust had acted in clear breach of its capability procedures, by: (i) notifying Mr Browne that his position was in jeopardy before formal procedures had been invoked; (ii) failing to investigate his grievance alleging race discrimination in the way he was being treated; (iii) suspending him from work without following the proper procedures; and (iv) giving “contradictory and unsatisfactory evidence” as to the reason for dismissal. The Trust treated Mr Browne less favourably than other divisional directors with whom they had problems and failed to provide a satisfactory explanation as to why this was the case. Furthermore, the Trust had failed to address the “extremely worrying statistics” presented by Mr Browne showing a pattern, year-on-year, of black employees being more likely to be subject to dismissal than white employees.

The award for race discrimination included: £20,000 for injury to feelings, £5,000 for aggravated damages, £13,000 for personal injury, £172,000 for loss of earnings, £100,000 for future loss of earnings and nearly £245,000 for loss of pension rights. Added to this was an £8,500 basic award for the unfair dismissal. The taxable elements were then grossed up to allow for the tax to be paid, giving a final figure of £933,115.