Witness statement as read out by RICHARD ROSS-LANGLEY on 1 Dec 2006
in the Employment Tribunal case number 1501249/2006
between Mr R S Ross-Langley (Claimant) and ANT Software Ltd (Respondent)

References in brackets[] are to page numbers in the Trial Bundle.

I, Richard Stewart Ross-Langley of 14 Swangleys Lane, Knebworth, Herts SG3 6AA, make this statement in connection with my claim for unfair dismissal in the Employment Tribunal against ANT Software Ltd of Cambridge.

BACKGROUND

I have international experience as a software programmer and computer consultant [1, 2, 3, 16].

Qualifications (CEng), appraisals [26, 64, 76] and references [204, 206] are evidence of my technical ability [35].

In my spare time I have studied academic courses over the Internet with:

EMPLOYMENT WITH THE RESPONDENT

After several interviews in August 2000 ANT offered me the job of Software Programmer, and also the job of Customer Support Engineer (CSE) [5].

I started work as CSE for the Respondent on 2 October 2000 [11], providing pre- and post-sales technical support to customers and prospective customers across the world [21] at £35,000 pa plus 10% in benefits [5].

In terms of inflation, my salary decreased over 5 years:

At the end of 2005 the CSE workload had effectively doubled [76].

In March 2006 I was told my role was redundant.

The Respondent considered me and the existing Technical Account Manager UK for the role of Technical Account Manager EMEA, then unfairly rejected me.

In April 2006 I was declared redundant. I asked for an appeal hearing on the grounds of unfair dismissal. In May 2006 the appeal was heard and rejected by Simon Woodward.

In June 2006 I submitted a claim for unfair dismissal to the Employment Tribunal.

I BELIEVE I WAS UNFAIRLY DISMISSED BECAUSE:

(A) Redundancy of my role was not the reason for my dismissal

The Respondent has sought to justify the redundancy on the basis of reallocating CSE duties from the Engineering department to the Sales department [223]. This is not a reason for redundancies.

Management of CSE regularly moved between the Sales and Engineering directors, viz:

So the reallocation of CSE duties to Sales in 2006 is not a reason for redundancies.

Simon Woodward, CEO for theRespondent, asserted that the aim of the redundancies was not to save money [173 top].

In December 2005 the Respondent declared £2m turnover and costs of £4m [72], leading to a sharp drop in the share price of the company.

It seems more likely that the real reason for the redundancies was to save money by reducing overheads and so restore the share price.

(B) I was unfairly pre-selected for redundancy.

In December 2005 my manager David Bell told the board he was retiring in March 2006.

David Bell told me he had, in December 2005, refused to put his resignation in writing.

The Respondent budgeted to eliminate my salary as well as David Bell's salary [148].

This contradicts paragraph 3 of the Respondent Grounds for Resistance [222] which says the review took place in March 2006 and the redundancies were planned after that.

Also contradicts the CEO saying [top of 173, top of 194] that it was not to save money.

David Bell told me Charles Maltby insisted on doing my annual appraisal in January 2006.

Charles Maltby did not go through the appraisal process with me, David Bell did it later.

In January 2006 Charles Maltby told me my performance was not good enough for a rise.

I was not given any prior warning about performance problems by Charles Maltby.

I was given no plan or schedule for performance improvement by Charles Maltby.

The other member of CSE was budgeted to continue into 2006 and was offered a rise.

A secondary reason fo rthe redundancies was to lay off people who were 'under-performing' [149] probably meaning troublemakers who disagree with the clique centred on the CEO: Simon Woodward, Paul Dodd, Barry Merrick, and the current sales director.

Barry Merrick had been offensive to me in September 2005, saying that the Galio product that he designed was slow because I could not train customers how to use it properly. When I proved to him that it really was slow, he told the Galio team that I was going to be sacked. I ignored his remarks since he had a reputation for being personally offensive as the Respondent knows.

So it is clear that it was me, not the role of CSE, that was pre-selected for redundancy.

(C) The consultation process was a sham.

I was offered the chance to compete for a Technical Account Manager (TAM) sales role already occupied by another employee [83] with almost the same job title.

I was given no chance to change the specification of the TAM EMEA role.

The scoring sheet did not mention knowledge of the product, which was obviously unfair.

I was not told how the scoring would be judged, which is also unfair.

The judges were to be Colin Shave, the new Sales Director who did not know me, and Charles Maltby who had no technical knowledge about software.

I met both of them separately in the consultation period to try to explain my capabilities.

Both were polite but it seemed to me that their minds were already made up.

On 6 April Charles Maltby told me the scores were secret [100].

I was not allowed to see the scores until 6 May 2006 at the appeal hearing.

The scoring was not independent [99] as claimed [225-15].

The scoring was unfair [98, 103].

The Respondent claims that the criteria were taken into consideration for the scoring but in reality neither Colin Shave nor Charles Maltby appear to have made any effort to discover the necessary facts.

For example my language skills are well above average, since I have basic knowledge of French and Latin from school, Spanish and Finnish from working abroad and Swedish from family connections.

My score was put at 1 out of 5 by both judges which is clearly wrong and shows that the necessary enquiries were not made.

(D) I was not considered for alternative posts.

The specification for the TAM EMEA role was the same as the TAM Asia role, and presumably also the TAM USA role, and yet I was not considered for those positions.

I was not considered for any of the alternative posts that were available. Simon Woodward told me he assumed I would not want them or that he knew I did not have the skills needed.

The Respondent did not try to create a job using any combination of my skills [35], although this was done for at least one other redundant person, so it seems it was me rather than my role that was pre-selected for redundancy.

(E) I was not offered alternative posts that were available.

I was not offered any of the alternative technical posts that were available, it was pre-decided that I could not do them or would not want them.

On 6 April 2006 when I was declared redundant [125], another employee Justin Topham was warned of redundancy [123].

On 11 April 2006 while I was still working for the Respondent, Charles Maltby discussed with Simon Woodward what role to offer Justin Topham [132].

The role was negotiated with Justin and adapted to his requirements [133].

The Release Engineer role offered to Justin Topham [134] includes technical functions well within my range. Most of it is work I was already doing.

I was not told that this role was available and was not considered for the role.

This is contrary to [225-16] where it is stated that on 6 April 2006 there were no suitable alternative roles.

Justin Topham's role of Release Management was not mentioned in [227-22] although it was specifically raised in the Appeal hearing [175 around the middle, 196 towards the end].

Charles Maltby and Simon Woodward had at least two discussions about a new role for Justin Topham [122, 132]. In my appeal hearing, Simon Woodward denied any knowledge of this.

RESPONDENT GROUNDS OF RESISTANCE

I would also like to make the following comments about the Grounds of Resistance, where the figures in brackets refer to the page number and the paragraph number on that page.

[222-2] CSE was supported by developers with deep knowledge of different modules.

[222-3] The redundancies were planned in December 2005, not March 2006.

[223-4] There was very little overlap - TAM UK dealt mostly with pre-Sales enquiries, CSE dealt with post-sales enquiries from developers: not straightforward at all.

[223-5] Consolidating three jobs into 1 meant that some of the work would have to be abandoned, or more people recruited as for TAM Asia.

[223-6]] The CSE role was worldwide. Combining CSE with TAMS would require all TAMs and CSE to be made redundant and then compete for fewer jobs.

[224-11] I never agreed that the process was fair, obviously.

[224-11] I explained to Charles Maltby the existing plan to automate and delegate - first implemented in 2000 [17] but quickly cancelled by the directors at the time on the grounds that a customer web server was not sufficiently secure.

[225-12,13] I asked several times, on this and other occasions, about other vacancies. In particular I said I would prefer a technical job and suggested that someone like myself would be needed to help the engineering team.

[225-15] The scoring was not independent because Charles Maltby told Colin Shave by email exactly what his scores were.

[225-16] It is untrue to say I did not actively engage in the consultation process. For example I explained to Charles Maltby that the scoring criteria had to reflect the job specification.

[225-16] I have often put forward ideas on how to improve efficiency but have been stonewalled at each turn by higher management [17 again] refusing to change [207 'lack of resources'].

[225-16] Not true, there were suitable alternative roles on 6 April 2006 and Charles Maltby with Simon Woodward were discussing one particular role on that day [122, 132]. This may have arisen because of my previous discussion above [225-12,13].

[226-18] The ex-gratia payment was an inducement to work the extra week, it was not part of the redundancy package. For the Respondent it was a worthwhile payment to ensure a smooth handover of CSE functions to other employees.

[226-19] It is not true to say that I refused. Sue Murphy/Hopkins wrote that the appeal could not take place unless I explained my grounds for an appeal. I questioned whether I was required to explain my reasons. At that stage I did not know the real reasons behind my dismissal and wanted to find out more - for example, to see the secret scores. In any case I believed it to be an unfair dismissal, as I explained.

[226-20] It is untrue to say I "focused" on the Respondent's method of running a business. At that stage I was asking Simon Woodward whether the goal was to make a profit, or to make the company look good to an investor [74 Vision]. My few questions concerned how to increase profit by calculating the cost of sales, sharing work [175], and being wary of 12 month notice periods. For example Stephen Reeder no longer works for the Respondent and yet he cost the company £10,000 per month for 11 months from April 2006 [150].

[226-21] It is not true to say that Simon Woodward explained the reasons why I scored less - he did not know, he said his reasons were "conceivable" [177]. In fact, he must know he is wrong to say I am not a fast learner - see high scores in academic courses in Background - or that I am not capable of lateral thinking. For example I kept an old motorcycle at Cambridge station, when I took the train, to save on travel time to the new office - having tried buses and walking and cycling.

[226-21] It is untrue to say I accepted the fairness of the process. I did not and do not.

[227-22] Simon Woodward first said the Systems Architect had been employed, then admitted that it was not definite and could be cancelled. In any case I was not told of the role previously, and it was made clear that I would not be chosen for it regardless of actual ability.

MORALE

I believe that the performance of the Respondent company can be vastly improved by some simple changes: delegation, budgets, and automation [74 Vision].

The Respondent could reduce staff turnover [157, 201] by implementing personnel management best practice as recommended by ACAS.

When I joined in 2000 Simon Woodward, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Respondent, often came down for brief chats about work with the CSE department, Tracy Hill and myself.

The subject of morale came up more than once. Simon Woodward seemed genuinely interested in how to help the engineers to be more effective in their work.

In 2001 after discussions with Simon Woodward, I organised weekly meetings where the staff could talk informally with the CEO over lunch. It was a two-way process, each learning from the other.

In 2001 after the company moved to smart new offices in the Business Park on the edge of Cambridge, the meetings petered out and morale deteriorated, especially after the redundancies announced on 11 September 2001.

After those redundancies Simon Woodward warned me not to speak out for others in the company but to let them speak for themselves. I understood this to mean that I would be labelled a 'troublemaker' if I persisted.

In 2002 a morale committee was set up [22] to address the problems and find a solution. The note about 'fear for jobs' was real, troublemakers were not encouraged to stay.

In 2004 the then Sales Director, Stephen Reeder, criticised me heavily for acting as a self elected spokesperson or leader, and for lacking leadership skills [32]. Simon Woodward stepped in at my request to negotiate a truce.

In October 2004, after Stephen Reeder had arranged a business skills counselling course for me to improve my performance, he tried to persuade the counsellor to extend the course and change his report about me [38, 39].

After that, CSE was moved into the Professional Services group under a new manager, David Bell who had people skills upwards and downwards, so things went much better.

When Tracy Hill left to go back to Australia, my workload doubled.

When David Bell announced his retirement, I think it was considered that I should leave too, in case I became a "troublemaker" at upper management levels.

SUMMARY

The redundancy was planned in Q4 of 2005 and executed in March 2006 [85, 86] as a way of making the accounts look better by reducing overheads..

Meanwhile Simon Woodward had received a performance-related rise of about 30% [73] after presiding over a loss of two million pounds.

The Engineering Director Charles Maltby stopped my annual performance appraisal, and stopped me getting a 2% cost of living increase on the grounds of bad performance [128].

I have reason to believe that I was marked down as a troublemaker, for trying to provide a pleasant working environment for the team.

For the reasons explained, I believe it is clear I was unfairly pre-selected for redundancy.

After that, the outcome of the consultation and the scoring process were pre-decided.

The scoring process was cursory and the details were initially kept secret from me.

I was not seriously considered for any alternative posts.

I was not offered posts which were available, in particular the post of Release Engineer negotiated by Simon Woodward and Charles Maltby with Justin Topham.

I believe the contents of this statement to be true.