In person For v Respondent — 2023

The Claimant was employed as a relief security officer. The tribunal found that an email from payroll in September 2021, saying he was contracted to two days a week, did not amount to a variation of contract. It was more likely to have been generated in response to a query about annual leave entitlement, and the tribunal preferred the Respondent's evidence that he remained on his original 5-hour contract throughout. The Claimant's argument that he had become a 2-day-per-week worker was not accepted.

On the redundancy payment claim, the tribunal held that the Claimant's employment had not ended, so there had been no dismissal by reason of redundancy. The only possible route to a redundancy payment was the lay-off or short-time scheme in the Employment Rights Act 1996. The tribunal found that only weeks in which no work was provided could count for that purpose on the facts of this case, and that the first relevant four-week period ran from 27 March 2022 to 23 April 2022. However, the email of 26 April 2022 was not treated as a valid notice of intention to claim: it was read as a complaint about not having been given redundancy earlier, not as an election to invoke the statutory redundancy-payment procedure. The Claimant also continued to indicate that he wanted work and objected to any suggestion of voluntary redundancy.

On holiday pay, the tribunal held that any complaint about the 2020 leave year was out of time because the Claimant knew of any issue by the end of December 2020 and could have brought a claim by 30 March 2021. Any complaint about the 2021 leave year was also out of time, because he was aware of the issue by the end of December 2021 and had not pursued it earlier. In any event, the Respondent had agreed to honour the 2021 entitlement based on the payroll miscommunication and to allow carry-over into 2022. The 2022 holiday pay complaint was premature because the Claimant was still employed, the leave year had not ended, and the tribunal found no basis for unpaid accrued leave on the 2-day-contract case advanced by the Claimant.