Mr E W Gillies v ’s Father Invincible Security Ltd — 2017

The claimant worked for the respondent as an apprentice alarm engineer from 17 October 2016 until 28 April 2017. He sought arrears of pay, breach of contract, holiday pay, failure to provide a written statement of employment particulars, unfair dismissal and redundancy payment. The tribunal held it had no jurisdiction to consider the unfair dismissal and redundancy payment claims because the claimant lacked the necessary qualifying service.

The principal issue was whether the claimant was employed under a contract of apprenticeship. The tribunal accepted that he was described as an apprentice engineer and received some training, but found there was no fixed term, the contract allowed termination on notice after probation, and the work done in practice was primarily labour alongside an experienced engineer rather than training as the main purpose of the relationship. Applying the authorities it cited, the tribunal held that the relationship was not a contract of apprenticeship at common law or for the purposes of Regulation 5 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015. The claimant was therefore entitled to be paid the National Minimum Wage for his age, and his claim for unlawful deductions from wages succeeded to that extent.

On the wages claim, the tribunal calculated the National Minimum Wage shortfall from the payslips in evidence and awarded £2,560. It rejected the day-release college pay element as out of time because any such payment would have been due by the end of November 2016 and the claim was not presented until 3 June 2017. The separate overtime element was not substantiated as claimed, although the tribunal accepted the minimum-wage correction where overtime had been paid below the applicable rate.

The tribunal also found that the contract entitled the claimant to one month's notice after probation, but he received only one week. It awarded three weeks' notice pay at the corrected weekly basic rate, producing an award of £793 gross. The holiday pay claim failed because the tribunal found he had already received all holiday pay to which he was entitled, including the holiday taken during the Christmas shutdown and the holiday pay shown on the final payslip. The claim for failure to provide a written statement of employment particulars also failed because the tribunal accepted the respondent's evidence that the statement had been provided.