What exactly are fair grounds for sacking a senior executive?

Question

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090309/tuk-baby-p-boss-claims-unfair-dismissal-
Here is a woman in charge of a department that was so badly run that no one appears to have known what their job was or who they were meant to be serving. The end result is that their incompetence killed a child, or allowed it to be killed when they were well aware of the danger that child was in. She was sacked. That seems little enough punishment to me when her refusal or inability to do her job properly amounted to reckless endangerment..but she is claiming unfair dismissal because, it would seem, senior executives do not believe that they are meant to do their jobs properly or at all. Bankers, council officials, politicians..who else is being paid a large salary for nothing and, in many cases, worse than nothing?

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

The link is not showing, but I know the story.

Fair grounds for terminating employment are the same no matter what the position or gender ............ not carrying out ones duties to the full.

That is different to carrying out ones duties to the best of ones ability, because sometimes ones best is just not good enough ....... so if the person is of inferior ability then they should be removed from the post and replaced with someone who can do the job.

In this case the judgement was correct and hopefully the Employment Tribunal will see that.

However, all that said it is wrong to make someone a 'scapegoat'.

Anonymous · Answer

Fair grounds? 

Anything. If the senior executive smells funny should do it.

What exactly are fair grounds for sacking a senior executive?

2 Answers