Case 3311842/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Mr R Salmon v London Metropolitan University — 2021
- Case reference
- 3311842/2020
- Decision date
- 19 October 2021
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Quill
- Venue
- Watford
- Panel members
- Ms M Prettyman, Ms J Beard
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr R Salmon
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr Salmon, a Senior Lecturer who had been part-time since 2016, brought complaints under the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 and also an unlawful deduction of wages claim. The deduction claim was withdrawn during the hearing and dismissed. The tribunal also accepted that the claimant’s 29 June 2020 letter was a valid Regulation 6 request for a written statement of reasons, but it found that the respondent’s written replies and later delay did not amount to a deliberate omission without reasonable excuse or to an evasive or equivocal statement.
For 2019/20, the tribunal found that the claimant’s formal scheduled teaching was 332 hours, which was slightly above 60% of the contractual maximum of 550 hours. It accepted the respondent’s evidence that lecturer workloads vary widely and that there is no single typical workload or average full-time lecturer for comparison. The tribunal rejected the claimant’s methodology based on an average full-time lecturer or a 350-hour denominator. It held that the increase from 0.5 FTE to 0.6 FTE, and the resulting allocation of teaching and dissertation work, arose from consultation and agreement after the claimant pressed for more work and a higher fraction, and was not treatment because he was a part-time worker.
For 2020/21, the tribunal considered the university’s Academic Workload Allocation Model and used a 35-hour full-time equivalent calculation for its analysis. On that basis, 0.6 FTE corresponded to 903 annual hours, while the claimant was allocated 801 hours in total and 288 hours of formal scheduled teaching. The tribunal found that this was below the pro rata maximum and that the reduction from 30 to 24 teaching weeks did not, in itself, amount to less favourable treatment, because the maximum annual FST did not change and the courses were treated in the same way as those taught by other lecturers. All Part-Time Workers Regulations complaints were dismissed and no remedy hearing was required.
Claims and outcomes
3 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Withdrawn in the course of the hearing; the judgment records it as dismissed because withdrawn. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Part-time worker regulations | 2019/20 less favourable treatment complaint. The tribunal found Mr Salmon had 332 FST hours, slightly above 60% of the 550-hour maximum, but held the allocation arose from consultation and agreement and was not because he was a part-time worker. | Dismissed | — | — |
| Part-time worker regulations | 2020/21 less favourable treatment complaint. Applying the tribunal's 35-hour AWAM calculation, it found 0.6 FTE equated to 903 annual hours, while Mr Salmon was allocated 801 hours in total and 288 FST hours, so the complaint failed. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
4 references- Regulation 5(3) PTW pro rata principle
- Hendrickson Europe Ltd v Pipe 4-stage process
- Regulation 5(2) PTW objective grounds
- Regulation 6 PTW written statement
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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