Claimant v Smart DCC Limited

Outcome

Facts

Eight claimants worked as analysts and a team leader in the Out of Hours (OOH) team for Capita Business Services Limited (CBSL), providing 24-hour incident management services for Smart DCC Limited under an outsourcing agreement. Smart DCC decided to insource the OOH service in April 2024, moving the core regulatory activities to its own Technical Operations Centre (TOC) team. CBSL maintained the claimants were not protected by TUPE because only a minority of tasks transferred and the same employer (CBSL) employed staff both before and after. The claimants argued their principal purpose was providing the mandatory 24-hour regulatory service, which transferred in its entirety to Smart DCC's TOC team.

Decision

The tribunal found there was a relevant TUPE transfer on 18 April 2024. The activities carried out by Smart DCC's TOC team were fundamentally the same as the core regulatory activities performed by the OOH team. The principal purpose of the OOH team was to maintain 24-hour regulatory compliance, not the ancillary category 4-5 incident resolution work that remained with CBSL. All eight claimants were assigned to the transferring services and their employment automatically transferred to Smart DCC by operation of law.

Practical note

Legal authorities cited