Mr. Graham Collins v SES Engineering Services Ltd — 2020

Mr. Graham Collins worked for SES Engineering Services Ltd from 12 March 2012 as a planning engineer. He was dismissed by reason of redundancy on 3 July 2020 and had received payments in lieu of notice and for accrued holiday. The only dispute before the tribunal was whether the respondent had used the correct figure for a week's pay when calculating statutory redundancy pay and 8.5 days' untaken holiday pay.

For redundancy pay, the tribunal applied s.135 and s.162 ERA 1996, together with s.221(2) ERA 1996, and referred to S and U Stores Ltd v Wilkes and University of Sunderland v Droussou. It found that the flex fund, private healthcare, life assurance and permanent health insurance were benefits in kind and were not remuneration. It also found that the car allowance and car compensation payment were reimbursement for expense and were not remuneration for redundancy purposes. The respondent's pension contribution did count as remuneration, and on that basis the tribunal calculated a weekly pension element of £34.29 and awarded a further £411.45 in statutory redundancy pay.

For holiday pay, the tribunal treated the agreed 8.5 days as basic annual leave and applied reg.13, reg.14 and reg.16 WTR 1998, with British Airways plc v Williams, Bear Scotland Ltd v Fulton and British Gas Trading Ltd v Lock. It held that the car allowance/car compensation and the pension contribution formed part of normal remuneration for holiday pay purposes, while the flex fund and the other benefits in kind did not. It therefore awarded a further £571.80 in respect of holiday pay. The total additional award ordered by the tribunal was £983.25.