Ms A Williams (Counsel) For v Mr D Ward (Consultant) — 2021

Mr Barr had continuous service from 8 November 2008 through a series of TUPE transfers, with the transfer to Pegasus effective from 19 August 2019. After the transfer, disputes arose about a one-hour daily travel allowance, the accuracy of timesheets, and the removal of night working. The tribunal accepted the evidence of Mr Hall, Mr Endres and Mr Hand, and found that the claimant had given a Cheltenham address while not disclosing that he was actually living at a holiday home near Pershore.

The tribunal was not persuaded that the claimant had a contractual entitlement to the travel allowance. It found the allowance had the hallmarks of something put in place for a particular set of circumstances, that the respondent had been told by Kier that it was non-contractual, and that removing it would not have been a breach of contract. It also rejected the claimant's contention that he had a contractual right to a particular overall rate of pay, and found no repudiatory breach arising from the proposal to move him to Gloucester or from the respondent's handling of the travel allowance.

On night working, the tribunal found the respondent initially removed the claimant and Mr O'Mahoney from nights because it used full-time night drivers, then discussed possible solutions on 10 October 2019, and by 31 October 2019 was willing to restore night work with adjustments to comply with regulations. It held there was no substantial change in working conditions to the claimant's material detriment under regulation 4(9) TUPE, and was not persuaded that the night-working issue, rather than scrutiny of the timesheets, prompted the resignation. The tribunal therefore found that the claimant was not dismissed and dismissed the claims for unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal, automatic unfair dismissal, TUPE, and wrongful dismissal.