Ms S Davison v GDMA Group Limited Heard by CVP — 2022

Ms S Davison brought a claim for unlawful deduction of wages against GDMA Group Limited arising from a deduction made from her final pay after her employment as recruitment manager ended on 5 October 2021 during her probationary period. The tribunal found that the respondent had emailed her contract of employment and induction timetable on 9 April 2021, before she started work on 12 April 2021, and that the contract contained express clauses requiring repayment of induction and other training costs, plus the DBS check, if she left during probation, together with provisions authorising deduction from wages.

The tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the claimant had signed and returned the contract, and preferred the respondent's copy over the claimant's differently annotated version. It found that the annotation on the respondent's copy, reading "need cost information re - training", was not a rejection of the contractual term. The tribunal also found that the claimant knew mandatory training was part of the role and that the induction schedule identified the courses and time to be spent, while the respondent had provided the claimant with a breakdown of the costs after termination.

Applying section 13 and section 13(1A) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal held that the deduction was authorised by written contractual terms that had been supplied to the claimant before the deduction was made. It also accepted the respondent's case that clause 12.3 covered someone who stopped being employed during probation, whether or not the departure was voluntary, and that the training time element formed part of the recoverable training cost. The tribunal therefore concluded that the deduction of £764.58 was not an unlawful deduction of wages and dismissed the claim.