Mrs S Walker v Represented by Mr D Wapplington - Trade Union Representative South Lanarkshire Council — 2024

Mrs S Walker brought a claim under s.13 Employment Rights Act 1996 for unlawful deduction from wages, arising from a deduction of £345.65 from her April 2024 salary when the Respondent moved her from full sick pay to half pay. The Claimant worked as a teacher at Mount Cameron School, and her sick pay entitlement was governed by the SNCT Handbook. The Tribunal recorded that the relevant sick pay provision entitled her to 183 days of full pay and 182 days of half pay, and that the Respondent is one of the councils that pays on a 28-day lunar cycle.

The Respondent argued that the Claimant had been overpaid because sick pay had been calculated on a 1/365 basis while her pay was made every 28 days. Mr Stephen Sloey, the payroll manager, gave evidence and relied on a spreadsheet said to show the overpayment and the offset recovered in April 2024. The Tribunal rejected that approach. It held that the Respondent’s position was inconsistent with the SNCT sick pay terms and that the notion of an overpayment was illogical when the full yearly entitlement was properly understood.

Applying the contractual terms and relying on Camden Primary Care Trust v Atchoe on identifying the wages properly payable, the Tribunal found that the Claimant was in fact paid the correct amount of sick pay. It accepted the Claimant’s calculations, including the balancing amounts shown on the February, March and January 2024 payslips. The Tribunal found that the Respondent’s spreadsheet could not be reconciled with the payslips because it did not account for the same number of days, and that the extra amounts of £6.13 on the February and March payslips and £8.60 on the January payslip were correct balancing payments.

The Tribunal therefore concluded that the deduction of £345.65 in April 2024 was not a lawful recoupment of an overpayment but an unlawful deduction from wages. The Respondent was ordered to pay that sum to the Claimant.