Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Case round-up

by Personnel Today 20 May 2003
by Personnel Today 20 May 2003

This week’s case round-up

Present not past workers
Inland Revenue Wales & Midlands v Bebb Travel Plc, CA, 16 April
2003, All ER(D) 291

The Court of Appeal confirmed the power to issue enforcement notices to
employers for failing to pay at a rate at least equal to the national minimum
wage is limited to present staff and not past staff.

Bebb Travel paid certain staff an hourly rate that fell below the national
minimum wage at that time. After the company ceased to employ those
individuals, the Inland Revenue issued an enforcement notice for the underpayment.
Using its power under s.19 of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Inland
Revenue required the company to pay to the former staff the difference between
the wages they had received, and the amount to which they were entitled in
accordance with the minimum wage.

Bebb Travel appealed to an employment tribunal against the issue of the
enforcement notice on the basis that one could only be served in respect of
existing workers, not past ones, and the notice was rescinded.

The Inland Revenue appealed unsuccessfully to the Employment Appeal
Tribunal, and pursued the matter to the Court of Appeal.

The appeal was unsuccessful. An enforcement notice can only be served in
respect of current or future pay periods and so applies only to existing
workers. Even though the notice could be used to remedy previous underpayments,
this is subject to the worker still being employed. There was no power under
the Act to issue an enforcement notice in respect of past workers for past pay.
(Note: the National Minimum Wage (Enforcement Notices) Bill is currently
progressing through Parliament. Once enacted, this will enable the Inland
Revenue to issue enforcement notices in respect of former staff of a defaulting
employer.)

Reduction in hours not redundancy situation
Aylward and Others v Glamorgan Holiday Home Limited, EAT, 5 February
2003, All ER(D)249

In this case, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) confirmed that a
reduction in an employee’s working hours constituted a change to their terms
and conditions, and not a redundancy situation.

Aylward and his colleagues were employed in a respite care centre. On
account of the nature of the services provided, the local authority required a
minimum level of staffing to be maintained.

Following significant losses, mainly due to poor use of the centre in the
months of January and February, a decision was made to close the centre for
these two months each year. The workers’ existing terms and conditions were
changed from a 52- to a 42-week year, with a consequential reduction in pay. A
small number rejected this proposal and were dismissed and replaced.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The redundant staff brought unfair dismissal claims. The tribunal dismissed
the claims, finding that it was not a redundancy situation. There was no
diminution of the company’s need for staff to carry out the work for which they
were employed, just a reduction in the number of weeks for which they were
required. The workers’ appeal was unsuccessful.

The EAT held that the tribunal was quite correct to focus on the requirement
for staff to do work of a particular kind, rather than on the amount of work to
be done.

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Staff recruitment levels improve
next post
People metrics boost for training

You may also like

Why we need to rethink soft skills in...

1 Jul 2025

Five misconceptions about hiring refugees

20 Jun 2025

Forward features list 2025 – submitting content to...

23 Nov 2024

Features list 2021 – submitting content to Personnel...

1 Sep 2020

Large firms have no plans to bring all...

26 Aug 2020

A typical work-from-home lunch: crisps

24 Aug 2020

Occupational health on the coronavirus frontline – ‘I...

21 Aug 2020

Occupational Health & Wellbeing research round-up: August 2020

7 Aug 2020

Acas: Redundancy related enquiries surge 160%

5 Aug 2020

Coronavirus: lockdown ‘phase two’ may bring added headaches...

17 Jul 2020

  • Empowering working parents and productivity during the summer holidays SPONSORED | Businesses play a...Read more
  • AI is here. Your workforce should be ready. SPONSORED | From content creation...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+