Mr A Owen For the v Respondent — 2022

The claimant brought a complaint of sexual orientation discrimination arising from events said to have occurred while he worked as a security manager at managed quarantine facilities. The preliminary hearing was limited to whether he was a contract worker within s.41 Equality Act 2010. The tribunal found that he was employed by K4 in the broad sense in s.83 Equality Act 2010, because he undertook personal service and was in a position of subordination to K4 once he accepted an assignment.

The tribunal nevertheless held that he was not a contract worker of the respondent. It found that the respondent was not a principal that made work available for him: the work as a security manager was made available by DHSC and by the security supply chain through G4S and K4, while the respondent’s role was to oversee compliance with DHSC standard operating procedures and contractual requirements. The tribunal also found that the claimant had not been supplied to the respondent by K4 in furtherance of a contract to which the respondent was a party, and it declined to imply any such contractual link.

In reaching that conclusion, the tribunal accepted that respondent staff attended meetings, gave advice and made recommendations about SOP compliance, and recorded breaches, but it found that those matters were consistent with a monitoring and liaison function rather than direct management control over the claimant’s work. It referred to Harrods v Remick, Leeds City Council v Woodhouse and Jones v Friends Provident Life Office, and said that even on a broad construction of s.41, the statutory requirement for a contractual link between supplier and principal had not been met.