In person For the v Respondent — 2019

Mr Warwick had been employed by the respondent as a landscape gardener for about two and a half years and resigned in September 2018, with his employment ending on 25 October 2018. At the end of employment the respondent said it would deduct sums for excess holiday taken and for the cost of attendance on a training course. The tribunal found that the old contract contained a deduction clause for excess holiday, that a later contract containing an additional training repayment clause had not been agreed by Mr Warwick, and that the annual leave position had been varied by conduct so that he had 33 days' entitlement, together with three days carried over from the previous year.

The tribunal found the respondent's holiday records and payslips to be inadequate and in parts misleading. It accepted that the claimant had not been given the spreadsheet used to explain the pay calculations during employment, that the final payslip did not identify the period covered or any deduction breakdown, and that the spreadsheet showed zero hours for the last 14 days even though the claimant had in fact worked those days. Referring to section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and Regulation 9 of the Working Time Regulations 1998, the tribunal held that the amount of any excess leave could not be identified with sufficient certainty and that the contractual wording about deducting 'the balance' was too ambiguous to authorise the deduction made.

On the wage calculation, the tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence that he had not been paid wages between 15 September 2018 and 25 October 2018 save for £1,337.37 paid into his account. Using the agreed weekly net pay of £447.55, it calculated six weeks' wages at £2,685.30 and deducted the payment already made, leaving £1,347.93. Judgment was therefore entered for the claimant in that amount net. The tribunal also observed that, if it had been necessary to determine the training deduction point, it would have held that the clause did not authorise deduction for the course fees or for the working time spent on the course.