Members J Lindsay and D McFarlane Mr W Johnston v ScotRail Trains Limited — 2020

Mr Johnston brought claims alleging sex discrimination, age discrimination and unlawful deduction from wages. At the final hearing on 14 to 16 October 2024 he gave evidence, and the respondent called William Black and Marion Graham. After the evidence and submissions, the claimant said he was no longer insisting on the discrimination claims. The Tribunal therefore treated those claims as withdrawn and dismissed them under rule 52 of schedule 1 to the Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2013.

The Tribunal found that ScotRail employed train drivers on annualised-hours contracts and that the claimant, who had started as a full-time train driver in 1979, moved to a job-share arrangement from May 2020 under the respondent's flexible working policy. The acceptance form and the 12 March 2020 variation letter stated that his current contract hours would be adjusted to 18 hours per week balanced to a 36-hour roster, with his salary retained pro rata. The Tribunal accepted that the claimant worked 18 hours on the roster, which was 50% of a full-time equivalent, and that he received 50% of the full-time salary, namely £29,290.50, together with pro-rated additional annual leave.

The claimant's complaint was that he should have been paid for 18 hours rather than 17.5 hours per week, particularly after he learned that the replacement job-share partner was paid at a higher annual rate and that other job-share contracts were inconsistent. The Tribunal accepted that the respondent's job-share contracts were poorly drafted and that different approaches had been taken across depots, but it held that those inconsistencies did not change the claimant's own contractual entitlement. It concluded that he had received all the sums to which he was entitled and dismissed the unlawful deduction from wages claim. No monetary award was made.