Mr Peter Flanagan v Respondent — 2020

Mr Peter Flanagan brought a complaint of unlawful deduction from wages against CBRE GWS Limited. The tribunal found that he was employed as a Shift Team Engineer, that his gross annual salary was £36,259.93 paid in monthly instalments of £3,021.67, and that he also received allowances of £714.47 per calendar month. He went on sick leave on 30 August 2017 and was contractually entitled to full pay for the first 18 weeks of absence, after which SSP applied.

The tribunal found that a fit note for the period from 28 December 2017 was not submitted until 11 January 2018, after the payroll cut-off, so the claimant was paid in full for January 2018. That created an overpayment for 21 days from 3 January 2018 to 31 January 2018, calculated as £2,928.69. Although a letter from HR on 21 February 2018 was found to be confusing, the tribunal accepted that the respondent then continued paying the claimant's allowance and recouped the overpayment from that allowance in instalments.

The deductions were £714.17 on 23 February 2018, 23 March 2018, 25 April 2018 and 25 May 2018, followed by £72.01 on 25 June 2018. The tribunal held that the respondent was entitled to make the deductions because they were reimbursement of an overpayment of wages, so section 14 ERA 1996 applied and section 13 ERA 1996 did not. It also found that, at least for most of the deductions, the contract and advance notification supported the deductions, although that did not matter to the final result.

The claim therefore failed. The tribunal also rejected the claimant's assertion that he had not been paid for the Bank Holiday on 1 January 2018, finding that the recouped overpayment related to the period starting on 3 January 2018 rather than to that bank holiday.