In person For the v Respondent — 2020

The claimant brought a claim for unlawful deductions from wages arising during his employment with Interserve before the TUPE transfer to OCS. The tribunal identified two issues: 7 weeks' statutory sick pay for January and February 2018, and wages for March 2018. It accepted that the claimant had in fact been paid the sick pay due on 28 May 2018, and that the March wages had also been repaid through later payments, although both were paid late.

On the sick pay issue, the tribunal found that the claimant had been paid £839.89 gross, whereas 7 weeks' SSP at the applicable rate of £89.35 per week totalled £625.45 gross, so he had been overpaid in gross terms. On the March wages issue, the tribunal found that Interserve had wrongly deducted £1,720 on 28 March 2018, but later payments on 18 April 2018 and 27 April 2018, totalling £1,350.96, represented repayment of that sum; on the evidence, the shortfall was about £113. Overall, the tribunal was satisfied that the claimant had received all monies due for those periods, albeit late.

The tribunal also considered whether the claimant had suffered any further financial loss attributable to the late payment. It rejected the claimed losses relating to council tax, housing benefit, possession proceedings, utility charges and credit rating because the evidence did not show that those matters were caused by the deductions or late payment, or because no financial loss was proved. As a result, the unlawful deductions claim succeeded, but no sum was ordered to be repaid and no further amount was awarded under s 24(2) ERA 1996.