Mr D Dodd v Health and Social Care Information Centre t/a NHS Digital — 2019

Mr Dodd brought a complaint of unauthorised deductions from wages, contending that from 1 April 2018 he was paid less than his contractual entitlement because he had been assimilated to the wrong pay point in the NHS pay reform. He said that his pay should have been aligned to his years of experience, rather than to the spine point he had reached under the pre-existing structure.

The tribunal found that the NHS Framework Agreement and NHS Handbook were contractual and had to be interpreted objectively against their background. It accepted that the claimant had been on spine point 43 at 31 March 2018, which under the new structure mapped to annual salary figures including £61,105 from 1 April 2018, then £63,966 on the next pay step date and £64,670 and £69,007 thereafter in the way described in the pay journey documentation.

Applying contractual interpretation principles, including the approach in Investors Compensation Scheme, the tribunal concluded that the new structure was intended to assimilate existing staff by reference to the pay point they actually held on 31 March 2018, not by retrospectively correcting for the 2015/16 increment freeze. It treated the FAQ material and NHS Employers' explanation as supportive evidence of that intended approach, and held that the claimant had been correctly assimilated. The tribunal therefore found that he had received all sums properly payable to him within section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and dismissed the claim.