Ms Hazel Simmonds v Croydon London Borough Council — 2023

Ms Hazel Simmonds brought a narrow claim about pay during suspension. The tribunal found that her contract of employment incorporated the Council's disciplinary procedure, which provided for suspension on "normal pay", and that the relevant JNC handbook for chief officers provided for suspension on full pay. It also found that the later correspondence in March 2021 did not clearly vary her contractual entitlement to reduce pay during suspension.

The tribunal accepted that Ms Simmonds was suspended from 10 February 2021 and later became sick during the suspension period. An occupational health report dated 1 October 2021 said she remained unfit for work but was fit to attend meetings with adjustments. The Council nevertheless applied sickness absence principles and reduced her pay for the period from November 2021 to March 2022.

Applying section 13 of the ERA 1996, the tribunal held that there was a clear contractual term entitling her to full pay while suspended, and that the sickness provisions did not displace that entitlement. It relied on the contractual wording and on the authorities cited for the proposition that, where the contract clearly provides for pay during suspension, the employer must use clear language if it intends sick pay arrangements to qualify that right. The tribunal distinguished the later authority relied on by the Council as turning on different facts and on the absence there of any contractual term about pay during suspension.

The tribunal therefore upheld the unlawful deduction from wages claim and ordered payment of the agreed net shortfall of £14,527.09. It declined to award interest, noting that no evidence of consequential loss was provided, and rejected the claimant's costs application because the issue was a legal argument on contractual interpretation with reasonable prospects of success for the Council.