Is this discrimination ? advice needed

[Demonchops]

Hello I need a bit of advice if anyone can help.
There's a large restructure going on at my company in my area (IT) - I work for a global energy company who is very well known. I am a formal home worker at the moment and have been doing the role for 4 +years as a homeworker - previous to that I have been office based ( London)

I have just been informed that my role is moving to the US as part of the restructure - because I am the home based role they have used that as the criteria to move the role to the US . There is another identical role my peer/ colleague does in London however his role is unaffected - (we are the same level and doing the same role)

I do think this is highly unfair as I was never told that being a homeworker would In actual fact mean i was at higher risk ( I had heard rumours they were reducing them tho)

My main annoyance is that out of the 2 identical UK roles they have chosen mine to move- they have given me no option to become London based prior to this so that both roles are viewed as on an even keel-

Essentially I feel that I have been discriminated against purely for the fact that I am a homeworker and have asked the company for flexible working arrangement (for which they have been always very good with)

Had I known that ultimately it would be in fact detrimental to my position perhaps I would not have chosen to be 100% home based ! But it has been a blessing with 3 young children to work around .

Any advice greatly recieved

Homeworking is not a protected characteristic so yes they can base their decisions on that.

However if you are saying that it is the flexible working which was argued for because you have children because you are female - that was the deciding factor, in order to effectively get rid of you, then you might have an argument.

Thanks for your reply - it's difficult to know if it's because of my flexible working- certainly I originally did the role from the London Hub and since having my 3rd child( 4 years ago) I negotiated a full home working contract-

So did they say that they wanted you to change your terms and conditions and require you to work back in London, was home working a temporary situation? To me it's sounds like they have approached it wrongly, the starting point should be the need for one less member of staff doing x job, they agree the "pool" from who to select someone as redundant, decide on the criteria for selection and make their decision. If the criteria included something to do with home working then I would say that is indirect discrimination. If they wanted you to work back in the office and you refused then that is potentially a different issue.