Mrs Shillito (Commercial non legal representative) For the v Mr H Singh Operations Manager — 2023

Mrs K Taylor and Ms P Walton were care workers for Lotus Care Home Ltd. At the hearing they withdrew three claims: alleged breaches of the National Minimum Wage Regulations and/or unauthorised deduction from wages about travel time between home and assignments, alleged failure to reimburse uniform/DBS/training costs, and alleged failure to pay a pandemic bonus. Those claims were dismissed on withdrawal.

On the remaining wages issue, the tribunal accepted Mr Singh's evidence that the travel payment was paid through payroll to all staff, taxed, and accounted for to HMRC. It held that the deduction of tax from that payment was an excepted deduction under section 14 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, not an unauthorised deduction from wages. On the separate National Minimum Wage claim, the tribunal accepted the respondent's schedules and found the pay reference period was the month ending on the 24th; on the figures for July to October 2022 the pay divided by working time remained above the National Minimum Wage for both claimants, so that claim failed.

The holiday claims also failed. For the 2022 leave year, the tribunal accepted the respondent's calculations of average daily holiday pay at £105.20 for Mrs Taylor and £71.64 for Ms Walton, and found that each claimant had already received holiday pay equivalent to 23.3 days after taking into account later payments made in March and April 2023. The tribunal therefore found no further compensation was due for holiday accrued but not taken at termination.

As to holiday years before 1 January 2022, the tribunal found there was no evidence that either claimant had raised a complaint or grievance during employment about refused holiday, and no contemporaneous evidence that requests for leave had been refused. It accepted Mr Singh's evidence that there was no policy preventing December leave, noted the contract did not permit carry-over, and held that any claim for denied holiday was in any event out of time. The result was that all remaining claims were dismissed.