Mrs M Dunn v Represented by: Mrs M Dunn - Lay Representative Barclays Bank UK plc — 2020

At a preliminary hearing in Glasgow on 5 March 2020, Employment Judge L Doherty considered the respondent's application to strike out a multiple claim brought by Mrs M Dunn, Mrs C Quinn and Mrs M Stuart against Barclays Bank UK plc. The claimants said their pay was unfair because they were on a 37.5 hour full-time equivalent basis while employees in the same or similar role elsewhere were on 35 hours, and the respondent said those terms were historically contractual and had been harmonised to 35 hours from 1 July 2019, with break times increased in May 2019.

The tribunal accepted that there was no material dispute about the contractual position, but held that the reasons for the pay differences were not the issue. The ET1 did not identify any legal basis for the complaint and described it in general terms of unfairness in pay. Later documents referred to discrimination based on the location of the role and relied on a 'but for' comparison, but the tribunal held that 'location of work' is not one of the protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

The tribunal also noted that there was no suggestion of breach of contract. It concluded that the claim was, in substance, a complaint of unfairness about location-based pay differences that the Employment Tribunal had no power to determine, so the claims had no reasonable prospects of success and were struck out under Rule 37(1)(a) of the Employment Tribunal (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013. In light of that conclusion, the respondent's alternative application for deposits of £1,000 per claimant was not considered further.