Richard Ryan appears in the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the latest TUPE case on “Service Provision Change” transfers: the transfer of part of an activity and the plurality of organised groupings

31 March 2016

Arch Initiatives -v- Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust & Others (2016)EAT/0267/15/RN (the Arch case)

The new President of the EAT, The Honorouble Mrs Justice Simler DBE, has clarified the scope of the Service Provision Change (SPC) regulations within TUPE, in a judgment delivered in January 2016 but only recently published on the EAT and Bailii websites (March 2016).

It confirms the general understanding that the transfer of all activities is not required for TUPE to apply and, furthermore, that activities may be split along functional lines, as well as quantitative lines. It also confirms that there is scope for a single person to constitute a SPC, even where that person is part of a wider service/activity which is itself split up upon the transfer (and therefore the single person transfers, potentially alongside other organised groupings or indeed multi organised groupings).

This case will be of interest to all solicitors who advise businesses which operate contracts for services either as an end user (client) or contractor (service provider) particularly in the context of the public sector and the reconfiguration of contracts on a re-tendering, where it is sometimes particularly difficult to identify transferring staff (if any). It will be of equal interest to the private sector, because the case has general application.

The full judgment can be found on the Bailii website:

[LINK] http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2016/0267_15_2101.html

Richard Ryan represented one of the successful respondents at the EAT (and the lead Claimant at the original tribunal), Mrs Aulton, on behalf of the Royal College of Nursing.  The EAT judgment is relatively long and detailed (28 pages) but a full analysis will be provided by Richard in the next PLP Employment newsletter.