Singh v The Members Of The Management Committe Of The Bristol Sikh Temple & Ors

For worker status under section 54(3)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, mutuality concerns whether an agreement is capable of amounting to a contract at all. It is not the more demanding mutuality required for a contract of employment. Consideration need not be fixed remuneration, and regular sums sourced from voluntary donations or the provision of accommodation may be relevant to whether contractual obligations exist.

A power to arrange or recommend substitutes does not displace an obligation of personal service unless the right not to perform personally is unfettered. Religious office-holding does not itself preclude contractual relations. A religious institution’s spiritual or voluntary ethos will exceptionally negate legal intention only where contractual relations are inconsistent with its particular beliefs and arrangements.

The appellant had served as Granthi, or Priest, at a Sikh Gurdwara. He received accommodation and regular and other payments derived from donations. He also took extended holidays, during which substitutes performed religious duties.

The Bristol Employment Tribunal held that he was neither an employee nor a worker. It found insufficient mutuality, no requisite personal service, and no intention to create legal relations because the Gurdwara operated with a traditional culture of voluntarism. There was no appeal from the finding that he was not an employee.

The appeal concerned whether the Tribunal had erred in holding that there was no contract under which the appellant personally undertook work or services for the purposes of section 54(3)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998.

1. Appeal allowed. The Employment Tribunal had applied the wrong approach to worker status under section 54(3)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998.

2. Mutuality for a contract other than employment asks whether there is sufficient obligation to found any contract. It does not require the reciprocal obligation to provide or pay for work which is required for a contract of employment. The Tribunal wrongly treated the absence of “certain remuneration” as determinative. Its own findings disclosed a regular payment of about £50 per week, and it had not properly considered whether the committee was obliged to pass collected donations to the appellant or whether accommodation was provided pursuant to an obligation.

3. The Tribunal also erred on personal service. The ability to recommend a substitute during absence does not exclude personal performance unless there is an unfettered right not to perform. There was no finding or evidence of such an unfettered right. The prescribed duties and required attendance at the Temple were inconsistent with inferring, merely from extended holidays, that no personal obligation existed.

4. The Tribunal’s errors on mutuality and personal service materially affected its conclusion on intention to create legal relations. Office-holding is compatible with a contract for personal services. The spiritual role of a priest and a culture of voluntarism do not by themselves negate legal intention. Following Moore and Percy, the threshold is high: arrangements between a religious institution and its minister should not lightly be treated as legally ineffective. The Tribunal made no finding that a contractual relationship was inconsistent with the beliefs or practice of this particular Gurdwara, and misread the constitution’s provision concerning unpaid executive-committee members as applying to the Granthi.

5. The case was remitted to the same Employment Tribunal for reconsideration in accordance with the EAT’s decision.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Allowed the appeal and remitted the worker-status issue to the same Tribunal.
• Bristol Employment Tribunal: Held that the appellant was not a worker under section 54(3)(b) of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, and was not an employee. The employee finding was not appealed.