Kingston Upon Hull City Council v Schofield & Ors

A claim under section 13 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 must concern wages to which the worker has a legal entitlement and which are a specific, quantified or quantifiable sum. The statutory procedure does not permit a claim for uncertain contractual damages.

An Employment Tribunal may resolve factual disputes bearing on an existing entitlement to wages. It has no jurisdiction in a deduction-from-wages claim to conduct a job evaluation, or to decide whether an employer should have evaluated a job differently. The value assigned to a job is a matter of evaluative judgment, not a factual issue capable of determining an ascertainable wage debt.

The claimants challenged the council’s evaluation of their jobs under its Single Status job-evaluation scheme. Following internal appeals, their jobs were graded at Grade 6 with retrospective pay. They contended that a proper evaluation would have placed them at Grade 7 or Grade 8.

They brought claims for unlawful deductions from wages under sections 13 and 23(1)(a) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. At a pre-hearing review, the Employment Judge held that the claims had better than little reasonable prospects of success and would require the Tribunal to determine the proper value of the jobs.

The council appealed. The central issue was whether a deduction-from-wages claim permitted the Tribunal to re-evaluate the jobs and thereby determine an alleged entitlement to higher pay.

1. Appeal allowed. The Employment Judge should have struck out the claims for want of jurisdiction. The claims were for uncertain damages, rather than sums of wages that were ascertained or ascertainable.

2. For a complaint under sections 13 and 23 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, a worker must identify wages to which they have a legal entitlement and which are a specific sum or can be quantified. The Tribunal may decide factual disputes necessary to establish the amount properly payable. It cannot use the statutory procedure to determine damages for breach of contract where the amount depends on a discretionary or evaluative exercise.

3. The authorities, including Coors Brewers Ltd v Adcock and others [2007] IRLR 440, establish that the procedure is designed for straightforward claims for quantified or quantifiable wages. The observation in Capek v Lincolnshire County Council [2000] IRLR 590 that determining what is properly payable may involve contractual rights concerning re-grading did not authorise a Tribunal to conduct a job evaluation.

4. The claimants’ case depended on a fresh assessment of the points attributable to their jobs. That assessment could have produced Grade 8, Grade 7, or no change from Grade 6. The claimed loss was therefore neither quantified nor quantifiable.

5. The value attributable to a job under a job-evaluation scheme is a question of judgment, not a disputed fact. The Tribunal had no contractual or statutory power under section 13 to put itself in the employer’s place and carry out, or assess the correctness of, that evaluation. The claims of unlawful deduction from wages were dismissed.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: appeal allowed; the Employment Judge’s decision was replaced with dismissal of the unlawful-deduction claims.
• Employment Tribunal: following a pre-hearing review on 23 June 2011, the Employment Judge held that the claims under sections 13 and 23(1)(a) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 had better than little reasonable prospects of success and were not struck out.