Mrs L Gale v Asks Ltd — 2021

The claimant worked as a sales negotiator from 4 February 2020 to 14 August 2020. The central factual dispute was whether her working pattern had been varied from four days a week, 29 hours, to two days a week. Applying the balance of probabilities, the tribunal preferred the claimant's account and found that no definite agreement to change the contract had been reached at the March meeting; instead, she was told the respondent would look at the position again after March when business demands allowed, and no written confirmation of any change was sent.

Because the proposed variation never took effect, the tribunal found the respondent remained contractually obliged to provide four days' work, or 29 hours, during the one-week notice period. It held that the respondent had no contractual right to require the claimant to take holiday during that period, and that it had not validly used the Working Time Regulations 1998 to direct leave because the notice given was not sufficient under regulation 15(4)(a). The respondent's failure to provide paid work for that notice week was therefore a breach of contract.

On remedy, the tribunal accepted that the claimant would probably only have worked two of the four days in the notice week because of childcare arrangements. It awarded £145.00 for notice pay on that basis, using 7.25 hours for a day at £10 an hour. It also awarded £634.30 for holiday pay on termination. After deducting the agreed £416.50 overpayment, the net figure was £362.80, and the tribunal then applied a 10% uplift under s.207A TULRCA 1992 because the respondent had not properly dealt with the claimant's grievance correspondence or offered an appeal, producing a final award of £399.08.