Claimant v Scott v Chigwell School and Mr H Ebden — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing on employment status heard by Employment Judge Moor on 31 January and 1 February 2019. The tribunal considered Mrs Scott's work at Chigwell School as a Visiting Music Teacher, ensemble work, and other ad hoc work such as performances and chaperoning. It held that the VMT written agreement was not a sham and reflected the real arrangement, including a limited right to send a deputy when necessary and subject to competence, DBS and safeguarding requirements.

For VMT work, the tribunal found that Mrs Scott was not an employee under s.230(1) ERA 1996. The main reasons were that she bore the economic risk because parents paid her directly, the School did not guarantee payment if parents did not pay, she could maintain private pupils and market her services externally, and there was no general mutuality of obligation outside individual pupil allocations. The tribunal also accepted that the School provided a substantial part of the VMT framework, including setting the lesson rate, allocating pupils, requiring 30-minute lessons, rota arrangements, written reports, and absence and safeguarding procedures.

Despite the finding that she was not an ERA employee, the tribunal held that Mrs Scott was a worker for VMT work under s.230(3)(b) ERA 1996 and an employee in the extended sense under s.83 Equality Act 2010. It relied on the fact that the School offered instrumental tuition as part of its own music department, set the fee, allocated pupils, and exercised contractual control over timetabling, reporting and safeguarding. The judge described the position as one in which Mrs Scott wore two different hats: a private singing teacher externally, and a worker when providing VMT services through the School.

The tribunal reached a different conclusion for ensemble work and other ad hoc work. Those engagements were not covered by the written VMT agreement, were paid hourly or by invoice to the School, could be accepted or declined, and could be stopped at will or covered by another teacher or Mr Ebden. On that basis Mrs Scott was neither an employee nor a worker, including in the extended Equality Act sense, in relation to ensemble and ad hoc work. The judgment was a status decision only and did not determine the substantive merits or remedy of the underlying claims.