Martin Groom v Maritime and Coastguard Agency

A volunteer has no separate legal status that prevents a contractual or worker relationship. Whether a volunteer is a limb (b) worker depends on the particular arrangements, construed as a whole. Labels such as voluntary, and statements purporting to exclude mutuality, are relevant but not conclusive.

A lack of an overarching contract does not preclude a worker contract during an individual engagement. Where a person attends an activity in return for an enforceable entitlement to hourly remuneration, a contract for services arises. The need to submit a payment claim, or a practice of not claiming, does not affect that entitlement. In this case, the arrangement satisfied section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 for remunerated activities.

The claimant had served as a volunteer Coastguard Rescue Officer and later as a Station Officer in the Coastguard Rescue Service. After being invited to a disciplinary hearing and having his membership terminated, he claimed a right to trade-union accompaniment under sections 10 and 11 of the Employment Relations Act 1999.

The Employment Tribunal held that he was not a limb (b) worker because the Volunteer Handbook and Code of Conduct created no contract at all. It treated the relationship as genuinely voluntary and held that no contract arose when he attended an activity.

On appeal, the claimant did not advance an overarching-contract case. The central issue was whether a contract for personal services arose when he attended an individual activity, particularly one for which the governing documents entitled him to hourly remuneration.

1. Appeal allowed on grounds 1 and 2. The Tribunal erred in construing the governing documents as creating no contract. The proper construction was that a contract for services arose when the claimant attended an activity carrying an entitlement to remuneration.

2. A volunteer relationship is not sui generis. The words “volunteer” and “voluntary” may bear on an intention to create legal relations, but are not terms of art and cannot override the effect of the arrangements as a whole. The Tribunal was therefore required to analyse the parties’ actual rights and obligations.

3. The absence of an umbrella contract did not decide worker status during individual engagements. A person may be free not to accept work, or may have no obligations between engagements, while still working under a contract during an accepted engagement. The Tribunal wrongly allowed its reliance on [2004] IRLR 35 to divert attention from that question.

4. The documents gave Coastguard Rescue Officers a right to hourly remuneration for a wide range of authorised activities. Requiring a monthly claim was merely an administrative payment mechanism. The fact that some volunteers did not claim did not affect the existence of the right. The payments were remuneration for time and disruption, not reimbursement of expenses.

5. The resulting bargain was, in substance, that if the officer worked at a remunerated activity, the respondent would pay for that work. It was not a collateral expenses contract. Whether analysed as unilateral or bilateral, it was a contract for the provision of services. As personal service and the absence of a client-or-customer relationship were agreed, the claimant was a worker under section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 when attending remunerated activities.

6. Ground 3 failed. The Tribunal had not found an insufficient degree of control; it had treated control as not materially assisting the contractual analysis.

7. The decision was substituted rather than remitted. Worker status during activities attracting no remuneration remained open for determination by the Tribunal.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: Allowed the appeal, set aside the Tribunal’s decision, and substituted a finding that the claimant was a worker during remunerated activities.
• Employment Tribunal: Held at a preliminary hearing that the claimant was not a worker because no contract existed between the parties.