Member P McColl Tribunal Member G McKay Mr David Watt v Represented by Himself Atalian Servest Integrated Solutions Limited and 1 other — 2021

The tribunal held that Atalian Servest Integrated Solutions Limited was a temporary work agency only when Mr Watt was supplied to the client for a discrete full shift in the press room. It found that his ordinary despatch shifts, including shifts where he also assisted in the press room, were not temporary assignments for the purposes of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 but formed part of an open-ended, regular pattern of work over many years.

For the full press-room shifts, the tribunal found that Mr Watt was supplied temporarily and under the supervision and direction of the client. It accepted that client managers directed his work in the press room and that he was covering absence or urgent need. It nevertheless found that his press-room role was a supporting one and preferred the respondent's evidence that he was not doing the same work as the client's Operators or General Production Auxiliaries, including because he did not have the full skills for those roles and could not step up to Printer.

The regulation 5 claim failed because there was no comparable employee doing the same or broadly similar work. The tribunal found that Mr Watt was paid national minimum wage for despatch hours and an additional small amount for press-room hours, but concluded that the evidence did not show that the support work he actually performed should have been paid at the rate of a client Operator or GPA. The claim was therefore dismissed and no compensation was awarded.