Well hello. It’s me, Philip Pearson-Batt. It’s so nice to be back doing a weekly blog.
We are in the full throws of summer now. The kids are off school (which for me, means clear roads on the way into work. Woohoo!), the sun finally decided to make an appearance last week and everybody seems to be on annual leave (I’m not jealous at all. Honestly).
For my part, unsurprisingly, my summer seems to have just been full of theatre. I’ve already given you a brief rundown of some of the shows I’ve seen: Romeo & Juliet (meh), Kiss Me Kate (excellent) and My Son’s a Queer (a tearjerker).
Since then, I’ve seen a further 3 shows. My highlight has been Hello Dolly which, contrary to popular belief, is not about Dolly Parton (she does have her own show heading to New York called Hello I’m Dolly though). Hello Dolly is on for a limited run in the West End and stars Imelda Staunton and I cannot recommend it enough if you like classy, feel-good, showstopping theatre performed to perfection by, in my opinion, the best actress we have in the UK at the moment and a 21 piece orchestra. I promise I’m not working on Hello Dolly commission. Although I should be.
That’s me done with the theatre for a while though – at least until Titanique starts. What is Titanique I hear you ask? It is the story of the 1990s mega-hit movie Titanic, set to the music of Celine Dion (did we all see her at the Olympics the other week? Did we all get a bit emotional, or was it just me? Crikey, I’m coming across very manly in this blog aren’t I?!) It looks like a complete fever dream and I am very much here for it, as you should be too!
Shall we change the subject quickly? Let’s. Shall we talk about employment law instead? Let’s.
I had thought I’d do a run-through of how to deal with employees who are facing criminal charges after the recent news about Huw Edwards, but past-me is so good, I’ve already given you my expertise on that in a previous blog (you’re getting two for the price of one in this blog!) READ HERE
So let me discuss something that is just as topical: employment status.
In the recent case of Martin Groom v Maritime and Costguard Agency the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) had to consider whether certain arrangements set out in a volunteer handbook could, in fact, give rise to individuals having worker status.
Mr Groom was a volunteer with the Coastguard Rescue Service. The Service has roughly 3,500 volunteers in the UK and has a volunteer handbook setting out how volunteers would be engaged.
In May 2020 he was invited to a disciplinary hearing, following which his membership of the service was terminated. He brought claims for breach of section 10 Employment Relations Act 1999: the right to be accompanied at a disciplinary or grievance hearing.
There were lots of various provisions in the service’s handbook which pointed to the nature of the work being voluntary. However, the EAT pointed to two key provisions that indicated something more than this. First, the handbook made clear that volunteers were expected to attend training and “maintain a reasonable level of incident attendance”. Second, the handbook made provisions for volunteers to claim payments on a monthly basis to cover “minor costs caused by your volunteering, and to compensate for any disruption to your personal life and employment and for unsocial hours call outs”.
At first instance, the tribunal said that Mr Groom was not a worker because there was no contract between him and the service. The reference in the handbook to payments was not conclusive of worker status because there was no automatic right to the payments and many volunteers didn’t actually claim it.
Mr Groom appealed and the EAT held that it was irrelevant that payments were not made automatically and that some volunteers chose not to claim them. Instead, the EAT found that there was a contract in existence when volunteers attended an activity which they had a right to remuneration for.
Apart from the fact the handbook required minimum levels of attendance and made provisions for payments to those engaged by the service, the EAT also took into account the fact that the handbook set out standards of conduct. There was also no right for the volunteer to send a substitute in their place and so this indicated that personal service was required.
Taking into account all of the above factors, the EAT found that Mr Groom was a worker.
The lesson to be taken away from this case, as pointed out by the EAT actually, is that there is no definition of “volunteer” in the relevant legislation. If you are going to be engaging volunteers you will need to be really careful about how you structure that relationship, particularly around remuneration which we would always advise is limited to expenses only. Anything else is going to start to tip the balance in favour of worker status and that comes with extra rights and responsibilities.
This is something that the new Labour government (which I know I keep harping on about) have on their radar, with plans to simplify the structure of employment statuses very much on the agenda. So it is worth getting your head around.
It’s almost as if I’ve planned this because… look! Team Precept have a free webinar coming up on employment status where we will be running through the key statutory definitions, the legal tests and the latest cases on this very topic. Register to attend our employment status webinar here
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