Case 4104649/2024 · Employment Tribunal
Mr J Stubbs v Represented by: Mr L G Cunningham - Advocate The Scottish Ministers — 2024
- Case reference
- 4104649/2024
- Decision date
- 22 November 2024
- Jurisdiction
- Scotland
- Judge
- Employment Judge S Cowen
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr J Stubbs
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr J Stubbs began working for Serco as a Prison Custody Officer at HMP Kilmarnock on 17 August 2011. His original contract referred to recognition of the Prison Service Union, which transferred to Community on 1 January 2013. Community entered a National Recognition and Procedural Agreement with Serco in December 2022, and Mr Stubbs's employment transferred to the Scottish Ministers on 17 March 2024 under TUPE.
The tribunal accepted the ET1 as a request for a section 1 ERA statement and treated the section 11 application as valid, but held that the Community recognition agreement did not have to be included in the written statement. It found that a recognition agreement could fall within the definition of a collective agreement under section 178 TULRCA, but that this agreement dealt with the machinery of collective bargaining rather than a collective agreement which directly affected Mr Stubbs's individual terms and conditions within section 1(4)(j) ERA.
In the alternative, the tribunal rejected the argument that Regulation 6 TUPE transferred the recognition. It found that HMP Kilmarnock had not maintained an independent identity after transfer to SPS: the prison was under SPS control, staff wore SPS uniform and identifiers, signage had changed, services and systems had altered, and harmonisation of pay was underway. The tribunal therefore dismissed the application to include the recognition agreement in the claimant's terms and conditions and ordered the respondent to provide a section 1 ERA letter excluding reference to that agreement.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other | Section 11 ERA 1996 / written particulars issue concerning whether the claimant's statement of employment particulars should refer to the Serco-Community recognition agreement. The tribunal held that the agreement should not be included in the claimant's terms and conditions, but it ordered the respondent to provide a section 1 ERA letter of terms and conditions excluding reference to that agreement. | Other | — | — |
Legal tests applied
7 references- s.1(4)(j) ERA 1996
- s.11 ERA 1996
- Schedule 2 s.7B ERA 1996
- s.178 TULRCA 1992
- Regulation 5 TUPE
- Regulation 6 TUPE
- Federacio de Servicios Publicos de la UGT v Ayuntamiento de la Linea de la Concepcion and others [2010] ICR 1248
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.
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