Ms M Bell v Represented by:15 Herself 24-7 Recruitment Services Limited — 2021

Ms M Bell worked for 24-7 Recruitment Services Ltd as an Operations Manager from 8 April 2017 to 16 August 2019, left to take up another job, and then returned on 8 October 2019 to the same role, clients and colleagues. She was dismissed on 21 June 2021 on redundancy grounds after the respondent lost the Sainsbury's account and reduced the team from three roles to two.

The central issue was whether the August 2019 to October 2019 gap broke continuity of employment. The tribunal found that it did. Although Mr Gardener had told the claimant she would be treated as continuously employed, he was not shown to have authority to bind the respondent on that point, and the written offer and contract both gave 8 October 2019 as the commencement date of continuous employment. Applying the statutory continuity rules in ERA 1996 and the authorities cited, the tribunal found there was no temporary cessation of work and no pre-existing arrangement or custom preserving continuity.

Because the claimant did not have two years' continuous service when dismissed, the tribunal held that it had no jurisdiction to determine her unfair dismissal claim or her claim for a statutory redundancy payment, and those claims were dismissed. On the notice issue, the tribunal held that the contract did not permit payment in lieu of notice, so the respondent was in breach of contract when it ended employment before the expiry of the one-month notice period.

The tribunal nevertheless refused any monetary remedy for the notice point because the claimant had already been paid for the notice period and had not shown a recoverable loss. It also refused the separate claim for compensation for annual leave that would have accrued during the notice period, holding that the respondent could have required paid annual leave during that period under regulation 15 of the Working Time Regulations 1998. No award was made.