Mr Varinder Gill (son) For the 1st v Purple Parking Ltd (In Administration) and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and 1 other — 2020

The claimant brought claims for notice pay and a redundancy payment after Purple Parking Limited went into administration in August 2017. The Secretary of State had rejected the redundancy application because the claimant’s employment could not be verified from the information available to the insolvency practitioner, so the tribunal dealt with the matter as a section 170 ERA reference and considered whether the claimant had proved employment and entitlement to redundancy pay.

The tribunal accepted the documentary evidence produced by the claimant, including what appeared to be a contract of employment dated 14 February 2011, Purple Parking ID and customer services cards, and payslips from 31 May 2011 to 31 July 2017. It found that the claimant was employed by the first respondent from 14 February 2011 until dismissal on 15 August 2017, and that section 170(2) ERA 1996 presumed the dismissal was by reason of redundancy. The tribunal also recorded that the claimant had not been paid a redundancy payment.

For the notice pay claim, the tribunal held that this was a breach of contract claim which should have been presented within 3 months of 15 August 2017. The claimant was offered the chance to give evidence on why it was not reasonably practicable to present the claim in time, but his son said the claimant would not pursue that head of claim. That claim was therefore dismissed.

On remedy, the tribunal accepted that the claimant had 6 complete years of service and was entitled to a multiplier of 9. As he had no normal working hours, it calculated a week’s pay from the last three payslips: £1,873.23 for May 2017, £1,072.36 for June 2017 and £1,317.81 for July 2017, totalling £4,263.40 and dividing by 13 to give £327.95. The redundancy payment was then assessed at £327.95 multiplied by 9, giving a gross award of £2,951.55.