Employment & Pensions Blog: Withholding important information in job applications following Easton v Secretary of State for the Home Office.

Most people know someone who has withheld information in their C.V. or job application that they’d rather not have to explain to a future employer, and equally most people might think this is generally harmless so long as they are not omitting something which has been specifically asked about. However, the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s decision in Easton v Secretary of State for the Home Office serves as a useful reminder of the consequences that can come from deliberately withholding important information in a job application.  

Background

Mr Easton was a career civil servant who worked in a number of different government departments, before eventually starting work for the Home Office in 2002. In 2016 the Home Office terminated Mr Easton’s employment for gross misconduct. Later that year he started working for the Department for Work and Pensions, and in May 2019 he reapplied for a job in a different part of the Home Office (Border Force). 

When writing his application for the Home Office in May 2019 Mr Easton completed a free-text box in which he set out his employment history, but he only included the years he was employed. He set out that he left the Home Office in 2016, and started work at the Department for Work and Pensions in 2016 – but he neglected to add that there was a three-month gap between the two roles. Mr Easton also left out of his application that the Home Office had dismissed him for gross misconduct in 2016. 

Mr Easton started his new role with the Border Force in January 2020, but quickly ran into one of his old managers who alerted senior managers of his prior dismissal. After a long investigation, Mr Easton’s employment was eventually terminated in November 2020 on the basis that he had been dishonest in his application for the role. 

Employment Tribunal

Mr Easton brought several claims against the Home Office, one of which was unfair dismissal. Whilst he had only been employed by the Home Office for a matter of months before he was dismissed for the second time, he met the requirement to have two years of continuous employment for an unfair dismissal claim because his total time working for the different departments in the Civil Service was treated as one continuous period. 

Mr Easton argued that he wasn’t asked to provide details of the specific months that he started and left employment, and he wasn’t asked to specify why he had left his previous jobs and therefore he wasn’t required to confirm that he had been dismissed for gross misconduct in 2016. It was therefore, according to Mr Easton, unfair for the Home Office to dismiss him for failing to volunteer this information. The application had an empty ‘Employment History’ text box, and all he was asked to do was to complete it.  

The Employment Tribunal disagreed, and it held that Mr Easton had been dishonest in failing to disclose information about his previous dismissal and the gap in his employment history.  

The Employment Tribunal also placed particular weight on the fact that Mr Easton ticked a box at the end of his application confirming: “I understand my application may be rejected or I may be subject to disciplinary action if I’ve given false information or withheld relevant details.” The Tribunal did not find the Claimant credible when he suggested that he didn’t consider that his prior dismissal for gross misconduct was a “relevant detail” that he had to disclose.

The Employment Tribunal therefore held that the Home Office’s decision to terminate his employment was reasonable and fair in the circumstances. However, Mr Easton disagreed and appealed to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. 

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT)

The basis for Mr Easton’s appeal was that the Employment History text box on the application form lacked any guidance or direction as to what should be included, and therefore it was entirely at the applicant’s discretion as to what information they provided – and as a matter of fact the information he put in the text box was factually correct (albeit it didn’t give finer details). Mr Easton also appealed on the basis that the Home Office knew about his past dismissal when they offered him the role in 2019, because it was the same Home Office who had terminated him for gross misconduct in 2016.

Dismissing his appeal and upholding the Employment Tribunal’s decision that his dismissal was fair, the EAT held that there was nothing ambiguous about being asked to provide your employment history. Gaps in employment history go directly to what the applicant was being asked, it was straightforward basic information that is routinely asked in job applications. The Claimant’s contention that the job application should have spelt out that ‘precise dates of employment are required so any gaps in employment can be understood’ – the EAT felt this was unrealistic. 

With regards to Mr Easton’s point that the Home Office knew of his dismissal because they were the ones who dismissed him, the EAT again disagreed. The court held that the Home Office is a large organisation that operates as an umbrella for smaller organisations, and it shouldn’t be assumed that the Home Office has one collective corporate memory. Secondly, the fact that the Home Office was aware of his prior dismissal did not take away from Mr Easton’s obligation to tell the truth in his application form.     

Comment

The legal question in this case was whether deliberately withholding the information was reasonable grounds for concluding that Mr Easton had destroyed the Home Office’s trust and confidence in him – with the Employment Tribunal and the EAT both very firmly concluding that it was reasonable, and Mr Easton’s dismissal was fair.   

Unfair dismissal cases arising out of the employee lying on their application form are generally rare because the employee is typically found out quite quickly and is dismissed before they have the two years continuous employment that is ordinarily required to bring an unfair dismissal claim. However, once the Employment Rights Bill becomes law and gives employees at least some unfair dismissal rights from the first day of employment, cases like this are bound to increase.

The case emphasises that applicants have to take a common-sense approach to what information they are being asked to provide in job applications, and omitting important information that they’d rather not explain (like gaps in employment, or dismissals for gross misconduct) could be grounds for fairly terminating employment further down the line. 

Whilst the outcome of the case is firmly that the onus is on the job applicant to be honest in the information they provide, businesses should avoid any room for misinterpretation by being clear in their application forms about exactly what information they want from applicants. As the Home Office did in this case, having a general declaration where the applicant confirms they understand the consequences of giving false information or withholding relevant details is also a good idea because it gives the applicant little scope to get out of providing important information on a technicality.  

If you require any further assistance or support in connection with your recruitment processes,  please contact a member of the Employment Team.