Buddy says: The EAT has held in Beattie v Age Concern UKEAT/0580/06/LA that sick pay for an hourly paid-employee should be calculated on the basis of hours worked rather than the minimum number of hours the employee was to provide each week.

Employer Information:

In the above case, Mrs Beattie’s contract of employment stated her normal working week would be 15 hours but could be significantly more. In reality Mrs Beattie worked over thirty hours each week.

Age Concern’s sick pay policy allowed employees after five years service to be entitled to six months’ full pay and then six months’ half pay. The policy did not provide any information on how pay was to be calculated.

When Mrs Beattie went on sick leave she argued that she should be paid in accordance with the average number of hours she worked each week prior to her absence. Age Concern, however, argued that she should be paid on the basis of the 15 hours stipulated under her contract.

The Employment Tribunal agreed with Age Concern and Mrs Beattie appealed. The EAT subsequently overruled the Tribunal’s original findings and held the contract must be construed as a whole. The EAT found that the minimum of 15 hours stipulated in the employment contract left open the question of what Mrs Beattie’s hours of work would actually be as the clause in the contract only contained a minimum.

The EAT stated the principal purpose of a sick pay policy is to support an employee, by continuing to pay them on the basis of the liabilities they have incurred and on which their economic life depended and therefore, should act as a continuation of pay received to date meaning payment for hours actually worked rather than for the minimum guaranteed hours.