Mrs P Moss v Dr Jian and Dr Subramanian — 2021

Mrs P Moss worked as a practice nurse from 6 March 2018 to 13 June 2019. The tribunal found that her pay had been calculated on a standardised month of 97.5 hours at £16 per hour, and that this approach should also be used when assessing pay on termination. On that basis, when she worked 22.5 hours on 11 June 2019 she should have been paid £360, but had been paid £208, so there was an unlawful deduction of £152. The tribunal also held that the respondent could not recalculate her termination pay by reference to weekly hours, and that the claimed overpayment of 37.5 hours was not established. It further accepted that the claimant was owed an additional 52.5 hours for the 'month in hand' arrangement, valued at £840.

On holiday pay, the tribunal found that the claimant's contract was silent on carry-over, but accepted evidence from Mr Smith that 21 hours of leave from 2018 had been authorised to carry into 2019. Applying regulation 14 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, it found that 46% of the leave year had expired by the termination date, so 68.31 hours had accrued; after subtracting 39.5 hours already taken, and adding the carried-over 21 hours, the claimant was due £796.96 at £16 per hour.

The tribunal also determined that the contract provided four weeks' notice in the first five years of employment, which was at least one week more than the statutory minimum, so section 87 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 did not alter the contractual notice position. It rejected the claimant's case that she was entitled to full pay while off sick from 21 May 2019 to 11 June 2019, finding no evidence of that entitlement and accepting the respondent's evidence that only statutory sick pay was due. Those findings formed part of the background to the deductions dispute, but the final award was confined to the unpaid wages and holiday pay identified above.