Mr R Easton First v Second Respondent: Exact Education Ltd Choice Contracting Services Limited (in liquidation) — 2019

The tribunal found that Mr Easton was a worker employed by Exact Education Ltd for the purposes of holiday pay and wages claims, and that his agreement was with Exact rather than with Choice Contracting Services Limited. Although payroll was administered through Wise Move and Choice, Mr Easton did not agree to be employed by Choice, did not sign the Choice contract, and his dealings about pay and hours were mainly with Exact's consultants.

On holiday pay, the tribunal held that Mr Easton was entitled to 5.6 weeks' paid leave under the Working Time Regulations 1998 and that his holiday pay should be calculated by reference to normal pay for the relevant Directive weeks. The claim for holiday pay in respect of October and December 2017 and January 2018 was out of time and dismissed. The claim succeeded for leave taken in July and August 2018, where the tribunal calculated the unpaid holiday pay by reference to his average hours and hourly rate, arriving at £3,976 against Exact.

The tribunal dismissed the separate claim for unpaid wages for the week beginning 16 July 2018. It accepted that Mr Easton worked 38 hours that week, but found that under the contractual arrangement with Exact payment was only properly payable for hours authorised by RNN, and there was no evidence that RNN had authorised those hours. The tribunal therefore held that no unlawful deduction from wages had occurred for that week.

The claim under the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 was also dismissed. The tribunal accepted that Mr Easton was within the scope of the AWR as an agency worker supplied by Exact to RNN, but found no breach of the parity provisions. It concluded that his annual leave entitlement was not less than that of a directly recruited lecturer, and that the evidence did not establish a higher holiday pay entitlement on the assumed direct-employment comparator basis. The tribunal therefore found no additional remedy under the AWR beyond the holiday pay award already made.