Niamatullah Wahid v Steel Fort Security Ltd (in voluntary liquidation) — 2022

The claimant, Niamatullah Wahid, brought a claim for unauthorised deductions from wages against Steel Fort Security Ltd (in voluntary liquidation). The respondent did not attend the hearing. The tribunal accepted that the claimant had worked shifts as a Gate Man / Door Supervisor on a construction site in Leatherhead, and limited its findings to the shifts shown in the screenshots before it: 13 days of work, treated as 156 hours in total.

The tribunal preferred the claimant's evidence on the hours worked and accepted that the respondent had paid him only £559.50 on 22 November 2021 without providing a pay statement explaining the calculation. It rejected the respondent's CIS deduction approach on the facts found, holding either that CIS deductions did not apply at all or, alternatively, that £10.50 per hour was agreed as a net figure. On the tribunal's calculation, the claimant was owed £1,898 in total for wages and travel allowance, less the £559.50 already paid, leaving £1,338.50 outstanding.

Applying sections 13 and 27 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal held that the unpaid balance was a deduction from wages and that there had been no written consent or contractual authority for the deduction. It therefore upheld the unlawful deductions from wages claim and ordered the respondent to pay £1,338.50, without any deduction from that sum in respect of CIS payments.