Ms S Black v Edinburgh Cleaning Services Limited — 2021

Ms S Black was employed by Edinburgh Cleaning Services Ltd from 12 September 2019 until her resignation on 9 June 2020. The claim concerned alleged underpayment of furlough pay and wages, and the tribunal addressed the matter under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the rules of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. It noted that furlough pay under the scheme was not available where an employee carried out paid work for the employer, and that eligibility required a continuous three-week period without work.

The tribunal was not able to verify the precise furlough-pay calculation for the claimant's earlier payments and did not find that she had suffered a deduction in relation to furlough pay she had already received. It accepted that her pay varied because she did not have fixed hours, and said it was possible that the furlough figure used by the respondent was correct when calculated on the available evidence.

The tribunal found that the claimant was eligible for furlough pay up to and including 7 May 2020, but not after that date, because she resumed paid work and did not again complete a continuous three-week period without work. It accepted that Mrs Watson had mistakenly told the claimant she could both work and remain on furlough, but held that this could not create a right to furlough pay beyond what the scheme allowed.

On the arithmetic, the tribunal found that the respondent paid £650 in April 2020, later established the correct furlough figure as £579.78, deducted £70.22 in May, paid £509.56 in May, and paid nothing for June. It concluded that the claimant should have been paid for work done from 8 May onwards and for the later period in June. Overall, £2,072.51 had been paid between March and June 2020, whereas £2,131.25 should have been paid, leaving a net unlawful deduction of £58.74. The respondent was ordered to pay that amount as compensation.