Mrs K K Malhi v SCS Homecare Ltd — 2025

At a public preliminary hearing on 9 May 2025, Employment Judge M Butler decided that Mrs K K Malhi was not employed by SCS Homecare Ltd. The tribunal accepted that she had been sponsored as a skilled worker, with a contractual start date of 25 November 2022, and that DBS, training and induction arrangements were made in early November 2022.

The tribunal found that on 3 November 2022 the claimant attended an induction, but did not start work under a contract of employment. It accepted evidence that she was observing tasks and being introduced to service-user information, rather than carrying out paid work, and that she was not yet DBS-cleared or training-complete. The tribunal held that the induction was collateral to any employment contract.

The tribunal also found that, during the induction, the claimant said she did not want to do caring and left, and that she never returned to work for the respondent. It relied on later messages about returning a uniform or paying £35, the claimant’s January and February 2023 messages asking to start work, the absence of rotas, and the absence of any complaint that she had not been paid. All claims were dismissed. The tribunal added that, if it were wrong on employment status, it would have found only a one-day employment ending when the claimant resigned and the respondent accepted that resignation.