You can be told about a vacancy in good time and still never have had a real chance at getting it.
“Tribunal dismissed every claim; found the recruitment process misleading, but not discriminatory.”
A vacancy notice is not a promise of a fair hearing.
- Being told about a vacancy satisfies your basic right as an agency workerA legal category that sits between employee and self-employed. Workers are entitled to certain rights including national minimum wage, paid holiday, and protection from unlawful deduction from wages, ..., even if the outcome already feels decided.
- A recruitment process can be criticised as misleading by a tribunal without that alone amounting to discrimination.
- If you think your treatment in a recruitment process was because of a disability, your religion or belief, or another protected characteristicOne of the nine characteristics listed in the Equality Act 2010 against which it is unlawful to discriminate. They include age, disability, race, sex, religion or belief, and sexual orientation. If yo..., get advice early. That link is what a claim actually depends on.
The situation
An agency teacher working at a Catholic multi-academy trust was told about a full-time teaching post becoming available and was sent the job advertisement, with a deadline to apply. She did not submit an application. The school's leadership had already given a preferred candidate to understand the job was hers. That happened before the agency teacher's application window had even closed. The tribunal called the ongoing recruitment process an exercise in "politeness," not a genuine competition.
What the tribunal found
The tribunal dismissed every claim the agency teacher brought: disability discrimination, discrimination because of religion or belief, harassmentUnwanted behaviour related to a protected characteristic, such as your sex, race, disability, age or religion, that violates your dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile or humiliating environment..., and a claim under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010. It agreed the recruitment process had been misleading. No binding job offer existed at the point she was invited to apply, but the school had, in substance, already decided who would get the post. The tribunal put this down to the school's own assessment of her ability and its preference for another candidate, who was not Catholic either, not to her disability or her beliefs.
On the agency workerSomeone placed by an employment agency to work shifts for a business, without being directly employed by that business. Agency workers still have rights under laws like the Employment (Allocation of T... point, the tribunal explained that Regulation 13 of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 gives agency workers a right to be told about relevant vacancies, so they are not left in the dark. It does not guarantee a fair or open competition once they are told. Because she had been notified of the vacancy in good time, that right had been satisfied, even though her decision not to apply was, in the tribunal's view, a reasonable response to a process she believed was already decided.
Mabrouk v St Thomas Aquinas Catholic Multi-Academy Trust, ET Case No. 1311276/2024, Employment Tribunal (Midlands West), decided 9 June 2026.