Equal pay

Case 9: The facts

Kim Hope was promoted but found that she was paid less than her male predecessor had been in the same job. Her role was then moved to a different location and she was made redundant, while a male colleague was appointed to a similar role in the new location, at a higher salary.

Hope brought claims of unfair dismissal, sex discrimination and equal pay. A tribunal upheld all her claims, but her employer appealed against the equal pay decisions.

The ruling

The employer had argued that Hope and her predecessor had not done "like work", because she did not have a deputy so did more work than her predecessor had done. The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) rejected this as going against the whole principle of equal pay.

Regarding the male colleague now doing the similar job, the employer had said only that the difference in pay arose because his terms and conditions had been "red-circled" to maintain the pay level he had previously been receiving in a different role. The EAT held that, although red-circling can be a genuine and non-discriminatory reason for a difference in pay, the employer had not shown that this was the situation in Hope's case.

SITA (UK) Ltd v Hope UKEAT/0787/04