Even if your dismissal was unfair, your compensation might still be reduced.

Winning an unfair dismissalA legal claim you can bring if your employer dismissed you without a fair reason or without following a fair process. You normally need two years of continuous employment to qualify, though some dismi... claim does not always mean winning the amount you expected. Your employer’s process can be found unfair, and your compensation can still be reduced, sometimes all the way to nothing.

What the Polkey reduction is

Named after the House of Lords case that established it, the Polkey reductionA principle that allows a tribunal to reduce your compensation if your employer could have dismissed you fairly even if they had followed the correct process. It is named after the House of Lords case... lets a tribunal cut your compensation if it decides your employer would have dismissed you anyway, even if it had followed a fair process from the start.

Gover v Propertycare Ltd confirmed this can apply whether or not the dismissal’s underlying reason was itself substantively unfair, not just where the process alone went wrong. The tribunal treats the assessment as a broad, practical judgment call, an “industrial jury” exercise, not a precise calculation. It has to estimate the likelihood and timing of a fair dismissal in a hypothetical fair process, then reduce your award to match.

That estimate can land anywhere. In some cases it wipes out the compensatory awardThe main part of an unfair dismissal award, calculated to cover your actual financial loss. It is not automatic and can be reduced, including to nil, if the tribunal concludes you would have been dism... entirely.

This only affects your compensatory award, the part meant to cover your actual financial losses. Your basic awardA fixed element of an unfair dismissal award, calculated by reference to your age, length of service, and weekly pay. Unlike the compensatory award, it is less affected by Polkey reductions., calculated from your age, length of service and weekly pay, is largely unaffected by a Polkey reduction.

Uncertainty is not an excuse to write off your claim

Software 2000 v Andrews put limits on how far this can go. The Employment Appeal Tribunal set out the principles tribunals must actually follow: engage with whatever evidence exists, do not treat genuine uncertainty as a reason to skip the exercise, and make a best estimate even when the evidence is thin.

A tribunal cannot use “we don’t know what would have happened” as grounds to reduce your award to nil by default. It has to try, using whatever is actually in front of it.

This matters because a weak Polkey argument from your employer, one built on speculation rather than evidence, should not automatically succeed just because certainty is impossible.

What to do next

If your employer is arguing for a Polkey reduction, or your award came back lower than expected, ask specifically what evidence the tribunal relied on to reach that figure. A reduction based on genuine evidence is very different from one based on assumption.

If you are weighing up whether to bring a claim at all, our situation guide can help you work out where you stand, or book a call with us directly.