1. Mr J Sinnott 2. Ms F Bennett 3. Mr I Miah 4. Miss A Mosdell 5. Mr D Mosdell v Urbanbubble Liverpool Limited (in Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation) and 2 others — 2022

This was a preliminary hearing on whether there had been a service provision change under TUPE 2006 in February 2020 when Bubble lost management of a number of Liverpool properties. The tribunal found that Bubble's work involved property management services together with the direct engagement of site staff. It also found that Evolution took over management from 21 February 2020, while Nationwide took physical control of the properties from 6 February 2020 and provided the relevant cleaning and security services after that date.

For Mr Sinnott, Ms Bennett and Mr Miah, the tribunal found that their pre-transfer work was a genuine concierge role with a resident-facing element as well as security responsibilities. After the change, Nationwide's staff were security guards dealing only with security. On that basis the tribunal held that the pre-transfer and post-transfer activities were not fundamentally the same, so there was no service provision change in relation to those concierge activities.

For Miss Mosdell and Mr Mosdell, the tribunal found that the cleaning activities were fundamentally the same before and after the change, but the client was not the same. Pre-transfer the tribunal found the client was Baltic and Elliot Group together; post-transfer Nationwide's client was Elliot Group alone. The tribunal held that TUPE did not allow it to ignore the contractual position so as to treat Elliot Group as the same client throughout, and therefore there was no service provision change even for the cleaning work. It said that, had the client been the same, it would not have accepted that Nationwide's cleaning appointment was a task of short-term duration. As a result, the claims against the second and third respondents were dismissed and the claims against the first respondent were left for further directions.