Miss C L Allen v Goyt Valley Carers Ltd — 2022

Miss C L Allen worked for Goyt Valley Carers Ltd from 4 January 2021 until 1 July 2022. The hearing concerned three agreed issues: whether £57.75 could be deducted for unaccrued annual leave, whether visit pay had been correctly paid, and whether the respondent was entitled to recover a £500 retention bonus from the claimant's final wages.

After the respondent's explanation at the hearing, the claimant accepted that she had taken leave she had not accrued and that she had been paid correctly for visit pay. The tribunal therefore recorded those two parts of the claim as withdrawn and dismissed.

The remaining issue was the £500 bonus. The tribunal found that the respondent had offered a retention bonus of up to £500 on 1 March 2022, that the claimant accepted the payment terms in writing, and that she received the bonus in March 2022. The tribunal held that the repayment term was not a penalty clause because it was not triggered by breach of contract; the claimant had given the required notice when she left on 1 July 2022.

The deduction nevertheless failed under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Clause 7 of the claimant's contract allowed deductions for overpayments only, and the tribunal found that the bonus was not an overpayment. There was no contractual term or written agreement authorising recovery of the bonus by deduction from salary, so the £500 taken from the final pay slip was an unlawful deduction from wages. The respondent was ordered to pay the claimant £500.