In person For the v Ms Asch-D’Souza (solicitor) — 2023

Ms Joseph worked for Sam Tutoring Ltd from May 2022 and resigned on 14 August 2022. The tribunal found that the parties reached a binding oral contract in their 27 April 2022 telephone conversation: the agreed salary was £25,000 per annum, 1 June 2022 was a firm start date, and the offer was unconditional. The tribunal preferred Ms Joseph's evidence, taking into account her notice to her previous employer, her rejection of an alternative £26,000 job offer, and the absence of any written indication that the role was conditional on the respondent securing work with Eden Park High School.

The tribunal rejected the respondent's case that the start date was only provisional or that the arrangement was conditional. It found that later messages about being in a transitional period and a possible start date of 1 August or 1 September did not amount to an agreed variation. Ms Joseph's repeated requests for meetings and for a written contract were treated as attempts to clarify her position rather than conduct referable only to acceptance of a change in terms. The tribunal therefore found that no variation of the 1 June start date had been agreed.

On that basis, the tribunal held that Ms Joseph was an employee, not a worker, from 1 June 2022 to 14 August 2022. It found that the wages properly payable during that period were the agreed £25,000 per annum pro rata, and that the respondent's failure to pay that amount amounted to an unlawful deduction from wages under section 13 ERA 1996. It also found that the respondent failed to provide a written statement of main terms of employment under section 1 ERA 1996 because the draft contract emailed on 8 August 2022 did not include key particulars such as her name, job title, start date, salary, or hours of work. Liability was determined in this judgment, with the amount of any award left to the later remedies hearing.