Mr E Piperdy v Shepherds Bush Housing Association Ltd and 1 other — 2021

The claimant worked for Shepherds Bush Housing Association Ltd from 11 February to 26 July 2021 as Income and Data Manager and was subject to a six-month probationary period. The tribunal recorded that a separate breach of contract claim had been dismissed following withdrawal on 9 March 2022. The factual background included historic rent and service charge issues, staffing vacancies, and the claimant's role in dealing with those matters.

On the Working Time Regulations complaint, the tribunal held that the complaints brought under regulation 4(1) and 4(2) were dismissed because it lacked jurisdiction to consider them. In any event, the claimant did not produce cogent evidence of the hours he actually worked, so the tribunal could not calculate an average under regulation 4(6). It accepted that he sometimes worked late or through the night and probably worked more than 48 hours in some individual weeks, including late February and some weeks in May, but it did not find that he worked on average more than 48 hours a week from 1 March to 26 July 2021.

On the whistleblowing detriment complaint, the claimant relied on emails dated 26 February, 11 March, 9 April, 23 April, 28 May and 25 June 2021 about service charge, rent and formula rent issues. The tribunal found that, viewed objectively, those communications were framed as risks and process improvements rather than clear allegations of current statutory non-compliance. It also found that the grievance investigators were not shown the later disclosures relied on, that the probation meeting on 18 June 2021 did not amount to an actual extension of probation, and that Andrew Hodgson was engaged as an independent contractor to assist with historic issues rather than to replace the claimant. The tribunal therefore dismissed the whistleblowing claim and said it did not need to decide whether the alleged disclosures were protected disclosures or whether any limitation issue arose.