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Good Afternoon, I'm new to the forum and would be grateful for some guidance regarding my wife's situation with her employer please. All responses are gratefully received.
My wife works for the NHS as a non-clinical Band 6 employee in a team of 7 people. She has been employed by the trust since October 2018. She took maternity leave from Sept 2020 to March 2021, and is due on maternity leave again on 19th May. This issue has many moving parts so I will try to summarise as concisely as possible.
In Sept 2020 my wife went on maternity leave, and returned to work in February 2021 on a part time basis (3 days per week pro-rata). On her return to work, it became apparent that her maternity cover was being paid more than her, despite being less qualified and having no prior NHS experience. On her first day back, her line manager, Mike (not his real name), informed her that she would be 'taking on a new role', and asked her to send her work phone back (she works remotely). He informed her that her maternity cover would be staying on in my wife's old role. My wife got off the phone and discussed this with me, and I suggested she call him back and make it clear that that would not be happening as pregnancy is a protected characteristic. She did, and Mike agreed that she could keep her old role.
All her colleagues that do the same job as her are male, and all are paid as Band 7 employees. Their has been a historical imbalance in the banding of the role and each of these colleagues had to petition their manager to be re-banded. Each was successful and received back-pay to the date that they entered the role. No job descriptions exist for either Band 6 or Band 7.
My wife made an enquiry about her banding in March 2021, to Mike, his manager and HR. She requested Band 6 & 7 job descriptions, along with advice on exactly what she needed to do to be re-banded at Level 7. She did not receive any response other than some obfuscating emails about a 'restructuring process', despite multiple subsequent enquiries. After liaising with her Unison rep, she filed a formal grievance in Sept 2021. Her grievance requested that she be re-banded to Level 7 and receive backpay to Sept 2019 (the date she took on her role).
The grievance was investigated and went to a level 2 appeal. There are 3 levels of appeal, the 3rd being at board level. Her grievance was upheld at the level 2 appeal, which occurred in Jan 2022. The resolutions from the grievance have still not been implemented. It was found at this appeal that both Mike and his Line Manager had provided misleading and fabricated documents to the initial investigation (this is detailed in the outcome letter my wife received). As there is unambiguous wrongdoing here, it makes sense that the trust may want to deal with this 'in-house' as opposed to escalating to a level 3 appeal, where these wrongdoings would be illuminated, opening the door to potential misconduct proceedings.
Prior to the grievance going through the appeal process, Mike's only knowledge of it would have been that the grievance was initially unsuccessful. During this time (Jan 2022), he facilitated a work development meeting with my wife where he stated that if she wanted to be a Level 7 she would have to realise that her actions have consequences, and then gave an example about her giving some incorrect data to a request. The example he gave was from May 2021, and he had never previously brought this issue up with her. He stated that 'all hell broke loose' and that the trust 'blew a gasket'. My wife, having no prior knowledge regarding this, was obviously concerned, and reached out to the party involved to clarify her mistake. She was informed that in actual fact it was a minor mistake and was no issue at all. This was an obvious and deliberate attempt by her Line Manager to gaslight her. She emailed him to state that she no longer felt comfortable speaking with him on a one-to-one basis other than by email. He did not respond for 2 weeks, and even then only to state that he was seeking HR advice. She also filed a bullying and harassment complaint against him.
The bullying and harassment complaint was investigated, but Mike refused to answer any questions and hid behind the veil of the fact that he works for a different trust, so doesn't come under the jurisdiction of the investigating trust. There has been no update since then. My wife was appointed a different Line Manager at her specific request. Mike has since been signed off with stress and my wife has been informed that his return to work date is 20th May, the day after she begins maternity leave.
On 23 March 2022, my wife had a meeting with her Unison rep, her Senior Line Manager (Julie, not her real name) and the HR Director. In this meeting she was expecting to be informed that the resolutions from her grievance would be actioned, but was instead told that if she sent through a job description of her role, they would send it to the job matching panel and she would be re-banded at the level that the panel determined. My wife had been asking for this exact action to take place since June 2021. The following week, she sent through her job description, but faced a wave of emails asking her to evidence each part of the job description. None of her colleagues had to do this. Regardless, she was able to evidence each part of the job description, yet Julie has still not sent the job description to the job matching panel. She has a meeting with the same people on the 17th May, which she has asked for an agenda for. Everyone involved is aware that she starts maternity leave on 19th May, but it appears that they are deliberately stalling the process.
If the resolutions from the level 2 appeal are not upheld, the next formal escalation would be for a level 3 (board of directors) appeal. My wife has stated to Julie that if the meeting on the 17th does not materialise resolutions then she will be escalating to the next process, in order to ensure that all official avenues are exhausted. At face value it appears that after the level 2 appeal, her senior line management opened the informal route with her in order to prevent escalation to a level 3 appeal. This appears to be to buy time before she goes on maternity leave. My wife's belief is that they think she will be too exhausted whilst on maternity leave to continue to fight it.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this. In my (biased) mind this would present as clear maternity and sex discrimination, but I would be grateful to know if there is an actionable case here from a legal perspective?
My wife works for the NHS as a non-clinical Band 6 employee in a team of 7 people. She has been employed by the trust since October 2018. She took maternity leave from Sept 2020 to March 2021, and is due on maternity leave again on 19th May. This issue has many moving parts so I will try to summarise as concisely as possible.
In Sept 2020 my wife went on maternity leave, and returned to work in February 2021 on a part time basis (3 days per week pro-rata). On her return to work, it became apparent that her maternity cover was being paid more than her, despite being less qualified and having no prior NHS experience. On her first day back, her line manager, Mike (not his real name), informed her that she would be 'taking on a new role', and asked her to send her work phone back (she works remotely). He informed her that her maternity cover would be staying on in my wife's old role. My wife got off the phone and discussed this with me, and I suggested she call him back and make it clear that that would not be happening as pregnancy is a protected characteristic. She did, and Mike agreed that she could keep her old role.
All her colleagues that do the same job as her are male, and all are paid as Band 7 employees. Their has been a historical imbalance in the banding of the role and each of these colleagues had to petition their manager to be re-banded. Each was successful and received back-pay to the date that they entered the role. No job descriptions exist for either Band 6 or Band 7.
My wife made an enquiry about her banding in March 2021, to Mike, his manager and HR. She requested Band 6 & 7 job descriptions, along with advice on exactly what she needed to do to be re-banded at Level 7. She did not receive any response other than some obfuscating emails about a 'restructuring process', despite multiple subsequent enquiries. After liaising with her Unison rep, she filed a formal grievance in Sept 2021. Her grievance requested that she be re-banded to Level 7 and receive backpay to Sept 2019 (the date she took on her role).
The grievance was investigated and went to a level 2 appeal. There are 3 levels of appeal, the 3rd being at board level. Her grievance was upheld at the level 2 appeal, which occurred in Jan 2022. The resolutions from the grievance have still not been implemented. It was found at this appeal that both Mike and his Line Manager had provided misleading and fabricated documents to the initial investigation (this is detailed in the outcome letter my wife received). As there is unambiguous wrongdoing here, it makes sense that the trust may want to deal with this 'in-house' as opposed to escalating to a level 3 appeal, where these wrongdoings would be illuminated, opening the door to potential misconduct proceedings.
Prior to the grievance going through the appeal process, Mike's only knowledge of it would have been that the grievance was initially unsuccessful. During this time (Jan 2022), he facilitated a work development meeting with my wife where he stated that if she wanted to be a Level 7 she would have to realise that her actions have consequences, and then gave an example about her giving some incorrect data to a request. The example he gave was from May 2021, and he had never previously brought this issue up with her. He stated that 'all hell broke loose' and that the trust 'blew a gasket'. My wife, having no prior knowledge regarding this, was obviously concerned, and reached out to the party involved to clarify her mistake. She was informed that in actual fact it was a minor mistake and was no issue at all. This was an obvious and deliberate attempt by her Line Manager to gaslight her. She emailed him to state that she no longer felt comfortable speaking with him on a one-to-one basis other than by email. He did not respond for 2 weeks, and even then only to state that he was seeking HR advice. She also filed a bullying and harassment complaint against him.
The bullying and harassment complaint was investigated, but Mike refused to answer any questions and hid behind the veil of the fact that he works for a different trust, so doesn't come under the jurisdiction of the investigating trust. There has been no update since then. My wife was appointed a different Line Manager at her specific request. Mike has since been signed off with stress and my wife has been informed that his return to work date is 20th May, the day after she begins maternity leave.
On 23 March 2022, my wife had a meeting with her Unison rep, her Senior Line Manager (Julie, not her real name) and the HR Director. In this meeting she was expecting to be informed that the resolutions from her grievance would be actioned, but was instead told that if she sent through a job description of her role, they would send it to the job matching panel and she would be re-banded at the level that the panel determined. My wife had been asking for this exact action to take place since June 2021. The following week, she sent through her job description, but faced a wave of emails asking her to evidence each part of the job description. None of her colleagues had to do this. Regardless, she was able to evidence each part of the job description, yet Julie has still not sent the job description to the job matching panel. She has a meeting with the same people on the 17th May, which she has asked for an agenda for. Everyone involved is aware that she starts maternity leave on 19th May, but it appears that they are deliberately stalling the process.
If the resolutions from the level 2 appeal are not upheld, the next formal escalation would be for a level 3 (board of directors) appeal. My wife has stated to Julie that if the meeting on the 17th does not materialise resolutions then she will be escalating to the next process, in order to ensure that all official avenues are exhausted. At face value it appears that after the level 2 appeal, her senior line management opened the informal route with her in order to prevent escalation to a level 3 appeal. This appears to be to buy time before she goes on maternity leave. My wife's belief is that they think she will be too exhausted whilst on maternity leave to continue to fight it.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this. In my (biased) mind this would present as clear maternity and sex discrimination, but I would be grateful to know if there is an actionable case here from a legal perspective?
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