EAT Unlawful Deduction From Wages – Complaint of unlawful deduction from wages arising from the Respondent’s failure to pay the Claimant at scale 4; the level at which her job had been evaluated as part of a benchmarking process prior to implementation of Single Status.
The ET found the local Single Status Agreement was varied by agreement between management and trade unions so earlier benchmark job evaluations would stand unless a re-evaluation was sought on the basis of a different job description or HR was asked to carry out the evaluation (earlier benchmark evaluations having been carried out by external consultants).
Further held: circumstances had arisen whereby a new job description was drawn up in respect of the Claimant’s job. That gave rise – consistent with the agreed variation – to a re-evaluation of the Claimant’s job, at scale 3 rather than 4. The re-evaluation itself was done properly, in accordance with the terms of the Single Status Agreement, and was not tainted by any desire on the part of the departmental management to see a lower evaluation of the job.
The Claimant had thus been paid the sums due to her; there was no unlawful deduction.
Those conclusions were open to the ET on the evidence, which comprised oral testimony as well as documentation relied on by the Claimant. The reasons were adequately explained and no error of law arose from rolling up the parties’ agreed list of issues into one key question.
Appeal dismissed.
Eady QC J
[2014] UKEAT 0350 – 13 – 1912
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.540354