The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held in Johnson Controls v Campbell and Anor that there was no service provision change under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (“TUPE”) where a centralised taxi booking service was brought back in-house by the client. Although the client was still undertaking the activity of booking taxis, there was no “centralised service” in place following the transfer. As a result, there was held to be an essentially different activity in place and TUPE did not apply. 

This case follows another recent decision in Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust v Hamshaw and others which held that where care services transferred from the Trust to new providers there was not a service provision change because the services were not fundamentally or essentially the same, owing to the methods used to provide them.Continue Reading TUPE: Service Provision Changes and what activities transfer

In the case of Eddie Stobart v Moreman & Others the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has provided welcome guidance on the meaning of “organised grouping of employees” for the purposes of a “service provision change” under regulation 3(3)(a)(i) of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employees) Regulations 2006 (“TUPE”). A group of employees who happened to work mainly for a particular client because they worked the day shift were found not to comprise an “organised grouping of employees” for “service provision change” purposes under TUPE. The EAT held that, when assessing whether employees will transfer to a new contractor following a service provision change, it is necessary to identify the existence of an “organised grouping of employees” the principal purpose of which is to carry out the relevant activities on behalf of the client, before analysing whether employees are assigned to that group. There will only be an “organised grouping” where the employees in question are “organised” for the purposes of the provision of services to the relevant client.
Continue Reading Service provision changes: UK EAT gives guidance on the meaning of an “organised grouping of employees”