A DECISION to end a former Basildon-based benefits worker's job early and without explanation was influenced by the fact she was on maternity leave and was "tainted by discrimination", an employment tribunal has found.

Aleksandra Zalewska, who worked for the Department for Work and Pensions as an executive officer on detached duty, was not informed her role had been deleted and that she would have to move to a less senior position at the Basildon Service Centre while she was on maternity leave.

According to an employment tribunal report, the decision to remove her role as an executive officer in 2019 was "tainted by discrimination".

The Department for Work and Pensions declined to comment while the case is ongoing.

However, the report continues to say Ms Zalewska was reassigned to a generic role and that her job in the DWP's Caxton House headquarters was temporary.

A section reads: "We have found that the decision to remove EO post was tainted with discrimination.

"However, if it had not been then we consider that the Respondent would have been entitled to return the Claimant to her substantive grade."

The DWP did not call the relevant decision makers, referred to as Mr Moore and Ms Curran, to answer the allegation of maternity discrimination.

According to the report, Ms Zalewska started work as an administrative officer, the civil service's most junior grade, in Basildon in 2016, but started a second period of detached duty at the higher grade of executive officer in the private pensions team in Caxton House in 2017.

She became pregnant in 2018 and fell sick with a pregnancy related illness shortly afterwards, having to remain off work for the rest of her pregnancy.

Ms Zalewska was told the DWP may not be able to guarantee the role would be available at the end of her maternity leave, the report says.

Her former line manager Gavin Forsdyke phoned her in June 2019 to tell her she would be returning to Basildon that month and that Linda Sadler would now be taking over as line manager.

Mr Moore was Mr Forsdyke's own line manager and the report says it was his responsibility to inform Ms Zalewska she would be transferring back to Basildon if Mr Forsdyke had not been informed.

It was also Mr Moore's decision to delete the executive role, according to the report.

While on maternity leave, there had been changes to means-tested benefits in the UK and Universal Credit was being introduced.

This meant there were different roles in the Basildon team, and Ms Zalewska would be going into a role she had not done before, at a lower grade.

According to the report, she informed Ms Sadler she had been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and was signed off work from October to November 2019, although the report continues to say she never returned to work and was dismissed for capability.

She now works for a different government department.

According to the report, Mr Forsdyke failed to keep her informed because he had not known about the deletion and by June he himself was in another role.

Emails referring to her directly by name, rather than referring to the deletion of her role, and the lack of transparency in the process, led the tribunal to conclude the decision to return her to Basildon was influenced by the fact she had taken maternity leave.

The tribunal will consider suitable remedies in May 2022.