Ms I Opalkova v Acquire Care Ltd — 2019

Ms I Opalkova worked for Acquire Care Ltd as a carer delivering home care and travelling between assignments. The tribunal refused her late amendment application to add a separate contractual claim for payment of travelling time at her hourly rate, applying Selkent Bus Company Ltd v Moore and Abercrombie v Argo Rangemaster Ltd and finding the new point was significantly out of time and would have caused prejudice to the respondent.

On the wages complaints, the tribunal held that travelling time between assignments had to be counted for National Minimum Wage purposes. It accepted the respondent's calculation that, once that travelling time was included, there was a shortfall of £1,304.39 for the period of employment, and that sum was awarded. The tribunal dismissed the claim for pay for the compulsory induction training in April 2017, finding that the training took place before employment began, was known to be unpaid, and did not count as time work under regulation 33 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015.

The tribunal also dismissed the claims based on later pay uplifts and the car scheme deductions. It found the claimant did receive the 12-week and six-month pay uplifts, albeit the 12-week increase was corrected later by back payment. It further found that the insurance, road tax and car maintenance payments were benefits in kind and that tax and national insurance deductions were required under the statutory PAYE scheme, so there was no unlawful deduction from wages.

On working time, the tribunal found 39 occasions on which the claimant had less than 11 hours' daily rest and 20 occasions when she worked more than six hours without a 20-minute rest break. For regulation 10, it held that regulation 22 applied because the work was split up over the day, but that compensatory rest was only equivalent on a limited number of occasions; on the remaining occasions there was no compliant daily rest. For regulation 12, it held that regulation 22 did not apply, and it rejected the argument that the claimant had to request breaks or arrange her own timesheets. It awarded £1,000 for the regulation 10 complaint and £1,000 for the regulation 12 complaint, making a total award of £3,304.39.