RNLI ‘unfair and disrespectful’ in making former Army captain redundant, WRC finds

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) was “unfair and disrespectful” to a former Irish Army captain who was made redundant and told a UK manager would be appointed to the job he had been doing.

A Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicating officer found it “extraordinary” that the RNLI thought a head office policy and fundraising officer was a better fit than Seán Dillion for the “frontline operational role” as head of region for Ireland.

The commission upheld Mr Dillon’s claim under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the sea rescue charity and ordered it to pay him €30,000 in compensation on top of the lump sum redundancy payment he received.

At a hearing last month, Mr Dillon said the charity’s failure to attend to answer his statutory complaint was symbolic “of the ignorance or contempt” towards Ireland as a region in the RNLI.

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He told the hearing that the RNLI was a “governance basket case” and said Irish donors would hand over cheques with a view to them going to Irish lifeboat stations, but they would instead be sent to the UK and “go into an account forever”.

[ Former RNLI manager says UK headquarters regarded Ireland with ‘ignorance and contempt’ ]

“There hasn’t been a new lifeboat delivered to Ireland in I don’t know how many years,” he said.

The complainant said he had to stop fundraising material going out to Irish households marked with Queen Elizabeth II’s picture and the pound sterling symbol and that there was particular resistance to devolving fundraising.

Mr Dillion maintained he was unfairly selected for redundancy from his position and was denied an interview for the head of region role replacing it. A senior manager at RNLI headquarters who was also facing redundancy got the job.

He said this occurred after “pushback” from staff at RNLI headquarters in Poole, Dorset, to a decentralisation plan he and other regional managers put together for the charity’s chief executive, Mark Dowie, before the Covid-19 pandemic. It proposed giving more autonomy to regional managers and devolving functions such as fundraising and human resources.

As decentralisation progressed in 2021, he found out he would have to interview for a job as head of region in Ireland, which he said he was already doing. He was then put on notice that he was at risk of redundancy, as were others at his grade and some staff in Poole.

At redundancy consultation meetings which followed, he learned his bosses regarded the new head of region positions to be more senior, though he held that there were no significant differences from his job description.

“I felt there was a lot of shenanigans going on,” he said. “Their [the successful candidate’s] experience is in fundraising and policy… I’m over here doing the role and my qualifications are superior.”

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The tribunal made a finding that Mr Dillon was assured at first that the Ireland head of region role was still available for him, but by the end of the notice period he was told the job was “gone” and that the UK manager, who had been facing redundancy herself, had “secured that role” as a suitable alternative for her own position.

The adjudicating officer, Eileen Campbell, wrote in her decision that the RNLI “did not adequately give serious consideration to suitable alternative roles” for Mr Dillon and there was “no meaningful engagement” with him on them.

“It was unfair and disrespectful to the complainant that he should discover while the [redundancy] consultation process had not yet finished that someone was in fact appointed to the Ireland role and he would not have the opportunity even to interview,” she added.

Ms Campbell noted that Mr Dillon and his colleagues had “raised expectations” because of the “rhetoric” of Mr Dowie and had helped him with his push for a “leaner, flatter structure” at the RNLI.

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“I am satisfied the reorganisation was not the cause of the complainant’s dismissal and whatever that cause was lies within the peculiar knowledge of the respondent,” she wrote, calling the redundancy process “entirely at odds with his right to fair procedures”.

Ms Campbell went ahead with the hearing last month with only Mr Dillon and a member of the press in attendance, having waited an hour for any RNLI representative to attend and satisfying herself in her inquiries that the charity was on record. She noted that a legal firm acting for the RNLI wrote to the WRC three days after the hearing took place “advising they were coming on record” and were provided with Mr Dillon’s submission on losses.