Case 4103972/2016 · Employment Tribunal
(sitting alone) Mr James Johnstone v Council — 2017
- Case reference
- 4103972/2016
- Decision date
- 1 August 2017
- Jurisdiction
- Scotland
- Judge
- Employment Judge I McFatridge
- Venue
- Glasgow
Parties
2 namedClaimant
(sitting alone) Mr James Johnstone
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr and Mrs Johnstone brought claims arising from their work as Connex MTFC foster carers for Glasgow City Council, including detriment for making protected disclosures and unlawful deduction from wages. This judgment was a preliminary hearing limited to jurisdiction: the tribunal had to decide whether the claimants were workers or employees, or neither, and therefore whether the case could proceed. The evidence showed that the MTFC scheme involved a fixed annual fee of about £32,000, a separate child allowance, paid holiday, intensive training, weekly meetings, daily parental daily reports, and restrictions on other paid work.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whistleblowing | Preliminary hearing on jurisdiction only; the tribunal held the claimants were employees and that the whistleblowing claim could proceed to a final hearing. No merits finding was made. | Other | — | — |
| Unlawful deduction from wages | Preliminary hearing on jurisdiction only; the tribunal held the claimants were employees and that the wages claim could proceed to a final hearing. No merits finding was made. | Other | — | — |
Legal tests applied
6 references- Ready Mixed Concrete test
- W v Essex County Council
- Rowlands v City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council
- Bullock v Norfolk County Council
- Norweb v Dixon
- Percy v Board of National Mission of the Church of Scotland
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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