Mr C Gilchrist v Aspyre Training and Communication Services Ltd and 1 other — 2020

This was a preliminary TUPE hearing about whether there had been a transfer from Aspyre Training and Communication Services Ltd to Wales Council for Deaf People. The tribunal found that R1 was a trading arm of R2, set up to provide training and interpretation services, and that the relevant economic entity was sufficiently identifiable because the service business was organised around its workforce and the way the work was delivered.

Applying the Spijkers approach and the authorities on service-based transfers, the tribunal held that there was a relevant transfer of an undertaking or business under Regulation 3(1)(a) TUPE 2006 rather than a service provision change. It found that the interpretation services and meeting room hire business transferred, and that the training element also retained its identity because a lip-reading course funded by Santander was due to run after the transfer and was the same activity as before. The claimant was assigned to that part of the undertaking, and his sickness absence did not prevent there being a transfer.

The tribunal did not accept that the claimant’s wider activities meant he was engaged in a multi-factorial role that transferred. It found that the activities described outside the core training work had either ceased by June 2018 or had ended by the time of the transfer, and that there was no evidence of a continuing pipeline of further training work. Separately, the claim against the first respondent was dismissed under Rule 27 because R1 had been dissolved on 23 July 2019.