THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF:	  89/15

CLAIMANT:			Magdalena Morawska	

RESPONDENT:		Grosvenor Cleaning Services

DECISION 

The claimant’s claim is dismissed as the Industrial Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to deal with this type of claim.

Constitution of Tribunal:

Employment Judge (sitting alone):	Employment Judge McCaffrey

Appearances:

The claimant did not attend and was not represented.

The respondent was represented by Mr Brian Solan.

1.	The claimant did not attend this hearing and had not contacted the tribunal office to request a postponement or to give any explanation for her non-attendance.

2.	Accordingly, and having waited until 10.20 am to begin the hearing, I decided to proceed in her absence.

3.	Having considered the papers in this matter I indicated to Mr Solan that it appeared to me that there was an issue in relation to the tribunal’s jurisdiction to deal with this matter.  The claimant claims that she was denied Statutory Sick Pay by the respondent.  The respondent in its response indicated that the claimant’s earnings were below the threshold for payment of Statutory Sick Pay and so she was not entitled to it.  Under the Social Security legislation, if an employee wishes to challenge an employer’s decision not to pay SSP, the employee may appeal to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for determination of the issue.  The Industrial Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to determine entitlement to SSP, if the jurisdiction is limited to dealing with claims of unlawful deductions from wages where the employer has omitted entitlement, but withheld payment of SSP (Taylor Gordon and Co. Ltd v Timmons [2004] IRLR 180).

4.	In this case the issue being raised was asked to entitlement of SSP, and accordingly the Industrial Tribunal has no jurisdiction to deal with the claim.  In light of this the claim is dismissed.

Employment Judge:       

Date and place of hearing:	2 April 2015, Belfast.	

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: