In person, assisted by Mr Peacock, Friend For the v Mr P Oldham of His Majesty’s Counsel — 2023

Ms J Owen was employed as a Quantity Surveyor and Senior Specialist at pay band 16. Her chosen comparator, Mr Thomas Birch, was a Building Surveyor in the same band. The respondent accepted that the work was like work for equal pay purposes. Mr Birch had joined in June 2020 on a negotiated salary of £65,000, while Ms Owen joined in November 2020 on the band minimum of £51,258 after being told she could not negotiate a higher starting salary.

The tribunal held that the respondent did not prove a material factor defence under section 69 EqA for that initial pay difference. It found that the respondent relied on an asserted verbal change in recruitment practice, but no written policy was produced and no sufficient explanation was given for why Ms Owen had to start at the band minimum while Mr Birch had been allowed to negotiate. The tribunal also dealt with the later April 2022 secondment to a grade 17 role, when Ms Owen received a 10% Additional Responsibility Allowance and her pay rose to £56,383.80 while Mr Birch remained on £65,000. It said the respondent had not properly identified a pleaded material factor for continuing the differential and that applying the normal secondment/ARA approach did not answer the equal pay complaint.

The tribunal therefore upheld the equal pay claim and held that the sex equality clause applied from November 2020 until the pay differential was retrospectively extinguished from July 2022. It also noted that no separate indirect sex discrimination claim had properly been brought; in any event, it found no prima facie case of group disadvantage to women and said the statistics relied on by the respondent, including average L16 salaries of £50,874 for men and £52,188 for women, did not show disadvantage to women. At remedy, the parties agreed back pay of £19,000, interest of £2,490.30 and an ACAS uplift of £2,509.70, making a total award of £24,000.