Mr David Bell v NIBS Buses Ltd — 2022

Mr David Bell worked for NIBS Buses Ltd as a bus driver from 11 November 2019 until he resigned on 30 November 2021. He brought a wages claim saying that he had been paid less than he was properly entitled to receive. The agreed position was that he was paid £10.71 per hour and could earn a 72p per hour bonus for driving hours if he met the relevant safe and fuel-efficient driving standards, making £11.43 per hour when the bonus was paid.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant met the driving standards and that the respondent had no evidence to contradict his evidence on that point. It also accepted that between 1 September 2020 and 30 November 2021 he worked 2,482 hours, of which 1,861 were driving hours and 621 were non-driving hours. The claimant argued that he should have been paid the bonus on those 621 non-driving hours as well, which would have produced an additional £447.12. The respondent’s case was that the bonus only applied to driving hours under the contract the claimant had signed.

The tribunal found that the claimant’s contract was the one he had signed, together with the related pay and bonus documents, and that the new contract introduced in September 2020 for new drivers was not automatically available to existing employees. It found that there was no implied term, and no other legal duty, requiring the respondent to tell the claimant about the new contract or to move him onto it if he wished. In reaching that conclusion, it distinguished Scally, University of Nottingham v Eyett, and Ibekwe, and held that the claimant had no right to switch to the new terms without the respondent’s consent.

The tribunal therefore held that the applicable contract remained the claimant’s existing contract, under which the bonus applied only to driving hours, and that he had been paid the sums due under that contract. The claim was dismissed.