Case 1801478/2023 · Employment Tribunal
Mr K Thomas and others (see schedule) v The Chief Constable of Humberside Heard by Remote Video Link - CVP — 2024
- Case reference
- 1801478/2023
- Decision date
- 31 January 2024
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr K Thomas and others (see schedule)
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimants worked as Covert Authorities Bureau staff providing Single Point of Contact coverage for communications data requests. The judgment concerned a preliminary issue: whether periods when the claimants were on standby/on call counted as working time, or only periods when they were actually tasked with work.
The tribunal found that standby duty was working time. It relied on the requirement to respond and commence work immediately or almost immediately, the practical restriction to the claimants' homes, the frequency and unpredictability of call-outs, the nature of the urgent work, and the duration of work when called out.
Claims in respect of national minimum wage were dismissed upon withdrawal, and the seventh and tenth claimants' claims were also dismissed upon withdrawal. No remedy was determined in this reserved judgment; the parties were directed to provide proposed directions for future case management.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working time regulations | The tribunal determined the preliminary issue that the whole periods of standby duty, when the claimants were on call, were working time within Regulation 2(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998. Future case management directions were to follow. | Upheld | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | The judgment records unauthorised deductions from wages claims in respect of time spent on call, but says the extent to which those claims survived withdrawal of the national minimum wage claims was not a matter for the preliminary issue. | Other | — | — |
| Other | Claims in respect of national minimum wage were dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
Legal tests applied
3 references- Regulation 2(1) of the Working Time Regulations 1998
- regulations 10 and 30 of the Working Time Regulations 1998
- Truslove
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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