Ms R Adams & others v Represented by: Mr P Deans - Solicitor Perth & Kinross Council — 2026

The claimants were term-time or part-year employees of Perth & Kinross Council on fixed-hours contracts. The legacy employees began employment before 1 January 2023 and the new employees after that date. The claimants alleged that increased holiday pay paid from January 2023 had become contractually due, and that the respondent's reduction of holiday pay from January 2025 resulted in unlawful deductions from wages.

The Tribunal considered section 13 and section 27(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Working Time Regulations 1998, Harpur Trust v Brazel, and the Employment Rights (Amendment, Revocation and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2023. It found that the legacy employees' contractual documents and communications treated annual leave uniformly and did not distinguish statutory from additional contractual leave. The provision about recording changes to terms and conditions did not give the respondent a right to vary terms unilaterally. The respondent's January 2023 change to the method of calculating holiday pay amounted to a unilateral contractual variation conferring entitlement to the increased holiday pay.

For new employees engaged from January 2023, the Tribunal found that their contractual documentation referred to annual leave without distinction and did not reserve a unilateral variation power. References to possible future changes following Government consultation were imprecise and did not state that any change might reduce pay. Those employees were therefore entitled from the outset to the higher level of holiday pay, and the consistent payment of increased holiday pay between January 2023 and December 2024 formed part of the contractual entitlement.

The Tribunal accepted that the 2023 Regulations reinstated a statutory regime for calculating statutory holiday pay, but found that this set a minimum floor and did not require or authorise reductions in pay or provide a defence to section 13 claims. It also found that the claimants had not authorised the deductions and that the communications relied on were insufficiently clear to amount to consent or contractual authority. The reductions implemented from January 2025 therefore constituted unlawful deductions from wages. No remedy figure was recorded in the judgment text.