THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF: 118/10IT
				120/10IT

CLAIMANTS:	1.  Bronagh McLaughlin
			2.  Jill Burns

RESPONDENT:	Capita Business Services Limited

DECISION

The decision of the tribunal is that the claimants were not employed on like work or broadly similar work as Absence Team Leaders with that of their comparators, who were employed as Recruitment Team Leaders and accordingly their claim is dismissed.

Constitution of Tribunal:

Chairman:		Miss Elizabeth McCaffrey

Members:		Mr Damien Walls
			Mr John Kinnear

Appearances: 

The claimants were represented by Mr B McKee Barrister-at-Law instructed by Millar McCaul Wylie Solicitors.

The respondent was represented by Mr P Wilson Barrister-at-Law instructed by Irwin Mitchell Solicitors.

1.	The Issues

The issues for the tribunal to decide were as follows:-

1.1	Whether the work carried out by the claimants in their role as Human Resource Absence Team Leaders was “like work” or “broadly similar work” to the work carried out by the claimants’ comparators who were Recruitment Team Leaders named Gary McAlorum, Adrian McKeown and Mark McCauley.

1.2	If the claimants did carry out “like work” or broadly similar work to their comparators, did the respondent have a general material factor defence which was devoid of sex discrimination?

2.	The Facts 

The tribunal heard evidence from the claimants Miss McLaughlin and Mrs Burns, from Keith Smyth, Peter Wallace and Roger Eigenheer who were employees of the respondent.  We also heard oral evidence from Jill Kelly who is employed by the Department of Finance and Personnel within their Human Resources Department. We wish to thank all the witnesses for their evidence to the tribunal. We did not have the benefit of hearing from any of the claimants’ comparators as to the role they carried out. On the basis of the witness statements and oral evidence adduced, we make the following findings of relevant facts.

2.1	Capita Business Services Limited (“the respondent”) is an organisation set up for the purpose of providing human resources services to various public bodies.  They contracted with the Northern Ireland Civil Service to provide various human resources functions for them.

2.2	The claimants were both employed as Absence Team Leaders by the respondent.  Miss McLaughlin commenced employment with the respondent in the role of a contact centre advisor on 30 April 2007 and was promoted to the role of Human Resource Absence Team Leader in February 2009.  Mrs Burns commenced employment with the respondent in the role of Human Resources Administrator in February 2008.  In April 2008 a job description and specification for the Human Resources Absence Team Leader role was created.  Mrs Burns was subsequently promoted to the role of HR Absence Team Leader in June 2008.

2.3	The role of an Absence Team Leader was to manage a team dedicated to dealing with human resource and pay roll issues arising from employee absence and encompassing issues such as sick leave, career breaks, maternity and paternity leave.  On average, each team leader managed a team of approximately 7 people although these numbers fluctuated to some degree.  At one point Mrs Burns had responsibility for approximately 20 people before a new team was set up.

2.4	The role of the Absence Team Leader included managing their team, including performance management and performance review of the team members, individual meetings with team members and daily team briefing.  The team leaders also contacted clients and dealt with issues such as business assurance, quality assurance, dealt with and handled client complaints, acting as a point of escalation for the administrators for response and policy questions and attended departmental meetings, dealt with error reporting and ensured that retained human resources staff in various government departments were supported on a “named contact” basis.  In particular the claimants asserted that they acted as the lead contact with the clients in the set up and managerial arrangements for their activities, which was a matter disputed by the respondent.  In the respondent’s view this was the role of the Absence Team Manager, not the Team Leaders.  However, it was clear from the claimants’ evidence that they had been introduced to various named contacts in various government departments.  The claimants were introduced to clients by Roisin McKeating, the Human Resources Manager, as the appropriate contact.  It was the respondent’s case that the Team Leaders did not attend client meetings except with the authority of their Manager, Mr Kevin Smyth.  The respondents also asserted that the claimants did not have any degree of autonomy in relation to these meetings.  The claimants however were clear that on numerous occasions they attended client meetings without Mr Smyth’s knowledge and that they did not require his approval to attend such meetings. While they agreed that they reported the facts of the meetings to Mr Smyth as their Line Manager, they believe that their comparators in the resourcing teams would have behaved in exactly the same way.

2.5	The claimants indicated that the Oracle computer system which had been introduced to deal with absence issues was not in their view tailored to the requirements of the Civil Service and a number of changes had to be made to the way the system operated.

2.6	The claimants identified a number of tasks which they carried out which were specific to their role in dealing with absence management. These included logging of calls, meeting deadlines for payroll, calculating temporary injury awards, liaising with attendance management sections of Departmental Human Resources, Service Management Office and Corporate Human Resources and managing online applications for various absence types.  Because of the change in computer system they also had to account for and solve discrepancies between the Legacy system and the new Oracle system.  They also indicated that they were involved in management projects such as reconciliation of Civil Servants absence records, calculations of annual leave entitlement and creation of procedures to be utilised to determine the pensionable rate of pay to which an individual would be entitled once they have exhausted their entitlement to contractual sick pay under the Civil Service Rules.  In addition, policy advice to clients had to be provided and procedures were drafted to be used in house.

2.7	The respondent’s witnesses disputed the level of specialist work carried out by the claimants and in particular their role in acting as a lead contact with the client in the set-up and managerial arrangements for certain activities.  Their Line Manager Mr Smyth indicated that the claimants did not have authority to make arrangements with the client and he did not agree that the claimants carried out any such activities.  He contrasted the position of Recruitment Team Leaders who were required to carry out recruitment assessment exercises with the client and therefore had regular contact with them in this position. The documentation refers to the Recruitment Team Leaders as Resourcing Team Leaders on occasion, but  for ease of reference we have referred to them as Recruitment Team Leaders in this decision.

2.8	The claimants believed that they were involved in engaging specialist services on behalf of the client in that they would arrange employee referrals to Occupational Health.  Mr Smyth’s view was that these referrals were carried out on a very structured format and after a referral was sent, no further work such as follow up action would be carried out: it was purely transactional.  By contrast Recruitment Team Leaders instructed third party service providers for functions such as recruitment advertising and psychometric testing.  He suggested that Recruitment Team Leaders were actually required to be involved with and engage with the third party as a part of dealing with the recruitment process, whereas an Absence Team Leader simply requested a report from Occupational Health.

2.9	The claimants believe that they had experience in the project management because of the fact that they identified a number of problems with the Oracle computer system when it was “going live” and had to put in place procedures to correct them.  First of all on occasion an employee would be automatically placed on the “pensionable rate of pay” when they had exhausted their sick pay entitlement without checking whether in fact the individual concerned had resumed work or had indeed retired.  The pensionable rate of pay project (“the PROP project”) was indicated by the respondents to be the only substantial project which the claimants carried out.  The claimants asserted however that they had dealt with other projects, such as that regarding “extended day working” where annual records had to be amended to take account of the hours actually worked by the staff members concerned. They also believed that the recording of sickness reasons had not been accurately or efficiently dealt with and this needed to be addressed.  In addition, the computer system could not cope with term time working and this had to be addressed and dealt with manually.  It was the claimants’ evidence that while identifying these problems and finding an appropriate solution was generally a fairly short matter, inputting the required information manually into the system to correct errors usually took a number of weeks. The reasons for sickness absence was a particular example.  The correction of the information on extended day working took approximately 6 weeks to resolve. While the claimants did not spend time on this matter on a daily basis, it took a substantial amount of time as and when the information became available.  On cross examination Miss McLaughlin agreed that the PROPs project took about 2–3 weeks to resolve. The extended day working issue took approximately 4 working days over a period of 6 weeks and the issue regarding reporting absence took about half a day to resolve. Mrs Burns also agreed that they did not both work on all of these projects, but she worked on some and Miss McLaughlin worked on others.  The respondent therefore took the view that project management was not a large part of the Absence Team Leaders work.

2.10	Each recruitment exercise run by the Recruitment Team Leaders was identified as a separate project. The Resourcing (or Recruitment) Team Leaders were responsible for running recruitment exercises from start to finish, including managing the advertisement and short listing process, arranging interviews and other tests and dealing with all associated work.  This is a pro-active and project management focused role.  Recruitment Team Leaders were required to provide advice on how best to advertise a vacancy in an efficient manner to draw awareness and attention to the role, assist with development and management of psychometric tests or for example, to conduct a job analysis.  

2.11	It was agreed between the parties that there were a number of Team Leader roles which were common to the claimants and their comparators, Mr McAlorum, Mr McKeown and Mr McCauley.  The main areas of difference appear to be the issue of Project Management and the personnel specification for Recruitment Team Leaders.  Recruitment Team Leaders required up-to-date knowledge of online recruitment and testing solutions, experience of management volume and specialist campaigns including online recruitment and post holders had to be willing to work towards British Psychological Society Level A and B qualifications.  It was also considered desirable that Recruitment Team Leaders should hold the Institute of Personnel Development (IPD) qualification in Human Resources.  Candidates for Recruitment Team Leaders had to be educated to degree level in a relevant discipline such as Business Administration or Human Resource Management.  The Administration Team Leaders (who became the Absence Team Leaders) were required be educated to GCSE standard education, to be numerate and literate and it was desirable to hold a Human Resources qualification although the level of the qualification was not specified.  In the job description for Absence Team Leaders the essential criteria were focussed towards management and supervisory experience rather than discipline-specific skills or experience, according to the respondent. 

2.12	The respondent highlighted that the service being provided by the Absence Team Leaders was in the process of “going live” and some issues arose at the outset of the service.  This led to a number of face to face client meetings with the client but it was suggested that these were not such an issue now that initial problems had been “ironed out” and there was no longer a requirement for the Absence Team Leaders to attend face to face client meetings.  This was in contrast to the Resourcing Team Leaders’ role where they would regularly deal with clients for individual recruitment competitions.

2.13	The claimants were initially supported in a grievance they took in relation to the question of equal pay by their Line Manager Keith Smyth.  Their grievance was lodged on 15 October 2009 and they had a grievance meeting with Peter Wallace the Head of Resourcing for the HR Connect contract.  Mr Wallace had been asked to deal with the grievance as he was a member of the Senior Management Team who had not had direct involvement in the case but did have some knowledge of the work carried out by the claimants’ comparators.  Initially the claimants had claimed they were carrying out work of equal value with that of their comparators and it was on this basis that the investigations were carried out.  The claimants’ grievance was dealt with in some detail and Mr Wallace wrote to both the claimants on 9 November 2009, indicating that their grievance had not been upheld.  As part of his response he set out a comparative table showing the responsibilities of the HR Absence Team Leader compared to the Recruitment Team Leader.  His analysis was based on the job descriptions provided for both jobs and not on the actual work carried out on an ongoing basis.  He highlighted the difference in educational qualification requirements and the fact that the Absence Team Leader’s job description had no reference to direct client contact, or requirement to deliver specialist services which required specialist knowledge or qualifications.

2.14	The claimants were not content with the outcome of this grievance and lodged an appeal which was heard by Mr Roger Eigenheer on 23 November 2009.  
Mr Eigenheer was the Commercial Director of Capita Business Services.  At this appeal meeting, the claimants specifically raised the issue that they were concerned that Mr Wallace had made a decision based on the job descriptions, which they believed were out of date, rather than the work they actually did.  Mr Eigenheer indicated that he believed that the tasks carried out by the Absence Team Leaders were actually over and above the tasks set out in their job descriptions. The tribunal also had sight of documents completed by Gary McAlorum, a Recruitment Team Leader and by Miss McLaughlin, setting out the work they did and the amount of time spent on various duties each week, which were prepared independently of the appeal process. While some queries were raised as to the accuracy of the way Mr McAlorum had accounted for his time, it was clear that there was a very different emphasis in the role and responsibilities of the two posts. 

2.15	In addition, the claimants had asserted that there was greater pressure on their roles due to the impact of the role on pay for individuals and the fact that the application of this task made their role “high value” to the business.  They asserted that if they made errors, this could impact on the service level agreement and potentially cost the respondent a considerable amount of money.  However, Mr Eigenheer’s finding was that both Team Leader roles had Service Level Agreement impacting pressures but that this pressure was greater for the Recruitment Team Leaders because their exposure was potentially 5.5 times greater than for the claimants. The claimants produced a written submission to the appeal meeting and specifically made the point that they believed that their role had a high value to the business.  They believed that the job description did not reflect the work they were actually carrying out or the pressure or importance of the role in terms of complying with service level agreements entered into by Northern Ireland Civil Service and Capita.  The claimants took the view that because of the time pressures in ensuring that staff were paid correctly and on time, an error on the part of their staff could have a major effect on the penalties imposed under the Service Level Agreement.

2.16	Mr Eigenheer agreed that the Service Level Agreements were an important factor in considering the work carried out both by the Recruitment Team Leaders and the Absence Team Leaders.  This was an issue which was referred to “the service level Agreement Exposure” of the different roles.  Penalties could be incurred by the respondent if service level agreements were not complied with.  Both Mr Wallace and Mr Eigenheer did calculations which led them to the view that, potentially, the Recruitment Team Leaders had a much greater exposure under the Service Level Agreements than for the claimants.  He had calculated indeed that the Recruitment Team Leaders had 5.5 times more exposure than the claimants.  After some hesitancy, however, it was confirmed that no penalty had actually been incurred or levied by the respondent.  Mr Eigenheer set out a detailed response in relation to the claimants’ allegations.  As part of the documents that he produced, he produced a table setting out the points raised by the claimants, his comments on them and whether or not it was material to the equal pay grievance.  He found that the claimants had based their claim on work not referred to in their job description and that they were carrying out tasks outside the scope of the role which was a management issue.  In cross examination he said that he was “a little alarmed” that staff at the level of the claimants were at meetings with clients and he believed that the claimants should not be at such meetings, as they were not empowered to make decisions.

2.17	The claimants had noted that while the Human Resource Team Leaders were to be qualified or working towards a set standard in that if a CIPD or BPS qualification was desirable for the role, a number of their comparators did not actually have this qualification, nor were they working towards it.  Mr Eigenheer identified this as a resourcing issue which had to be addressed by management.  He did however say it was material to the question of equal pay in that it supports the assertion that the Recruitment Team Leader role is of “higher value.”

2.18	The other matters which he identified as being relevant to the issue of the equal pay were the question of engaging specialist services which he found to be of equal value from the point of view of the work carried out by the claimants and their comparators.  On the question of project management, he found that the project management role carried out by the Recruitment Team Leaders was carried on both on an ad hoc and continuing basis and that as Recruitment Team Leaders had multiple projects running, he judged them to be of greater value than the “ad hoc” project management carried out by the claimants.

2.19	While Mr Eigenheer accepted that the claimants were carrying out roles outside their job description, he did not accept that the job description itself should be changed.  It was his recommendation however that the claimants should revert to their original job descriptions and should not have as much client contact as they had previously had. It was the respondent’s contention that the pay differential between the claimants who were on a pay scale of £18,000.00 - £22,000.00 per annum, as their comparators were on a pay scale of £24,000.00 upwards per annum reflected the responsibility of the tasks involved in their respective jobs. They also said that the higher level of qualifications required for the task justified the difference in pay scale, and that this constituted a genuine material factor defence. It was also noted by the tribunal that amongst the recruitment team leaders there were a number of women, some of whom were higher on the pay scale than the comparators identified by the claimants.  

2.20	There were some other issues relied on by the claimants alleging that the difference in pay between the Absence Team Leaders and the Recruitment Team Leaders was based on sex.  Miss McLaughlin said in her oral evidence that Mr Smyth had told her that when  Roisin McKeating was discussing the level of salary for the Absence Team Leaders with senior managers at the time  Jill Burns was appointed and had said “Offer her £18,000.00, she’ll take £18,000.00.”  Mr Smyth said he had no recollection of this conversation and it was not tested in any way.  The tribunal is wary of such evidence which is hearsay in nature and was not corroborated in any way and we have not made any finding in relation to this allegation. In any case, it is not relevant to the first issue we have to decide, which relates to whether the work being done by the claimants is the same or broadly similar to the comparators’ work.  The respondent’s failure to carry out a job evaluation was also alleged to be a factor which is motivated by sex discrimination, as was an email sent by Mr Smyth to the claimant saying that he couldn’t get involved in the grievance because he would be “jobless”. We do not consider Mr Smyth’s comment to be relevant to the question of whether there was sex discrimination in this case: it seems to us that it is more an indication of Mr Smyth, who was initially supportive of the claimants, getting cold feet about continuing his support, especially as it emerged at the appeal stage that he had apparently allowed the claimants to assume responsibility for client meetings he should have conducted himself. While a job evaluation may be a useful tool to establish whether work is the same or broadly similar, we do not consider that the respondent’s failure to carry out a job evaluation in this case is an indication of sex discrimination, for the reasons we set out below.

3.	The Relevant Law

The relevant legislation is this matter is to be found in Section 1(5) of the Equal Pay Act (Northern Ireland) 1970 which provides as follows:-

3.1	“A woman is to be regarded as employed on like work with men, if, but only if, her work and theirs is of the same or a broadly similar nature, and the differences (if any) between the things she does and things they do are not of practical importance in relation to terms and conditions of employment; and accordingly in comparing her work with theirs regard shall be had to the frequency or otherwise with which any such differences occur in practice as well as to the nature and extent of the differences.” 

3.2	We are aware that the tribunal must consider this definition in two stages.  First, we must be satisfied that the claimants’ work is the same or, if not the same, of a broadly similar nature to that of their comparator.  Secondly, the differences (if any) between the work she does and the work her male comparator does must not be of “practical importance” in relation to the terms and conditions of employment.  It is established that it is for the claimant to show that she does the same work or work of a similar nature, but the evidential burden of showing differences of practical importance rests on the employers (Shields v E Coomes Holdings [1978] ICR 1159).

3.3	Tribunals are not to get involved in “fiddling detail or pernickety examination of differences which set against the broad picture fade into insignificance” (Dorothy Perkins Limited v Dance and Others [1997] IRLR 226). A broad judgment is to be applied. In Capper Pass Limited v Lawton [1997] ICR 83, the EAT upheld the tribunal’s finding that the correct approach involved a general consideration of the work done by the woman and her comparator and the knowledge and skill required to do it.  Comparison of the jobs must however take into account the whole job. Duties which the man and woman do not have in common can not generally be excluded from consideration, nor can a woman “hive off” some parts of her work and claim equality in respect of the balance of similar duties which remain.

3.4	Once the tribunal is satisfied that the work is of a broadly similar nature, they must then go on to consider whether any differences between the claimants and the comparators’ job are of “practical importance” in relation to terms and conditions of employment.  The legislation clearly says that tribunals should consider the frequency or otherwise with which such differences occur in practice, their nature and extent.  It is also important that the tribunal concentrates mainly on the work that is actually undertaken, rather than how a job description or contract of employment describes the job and the duties entailed in it.  In Shields v E Coomes (Holdings) [1978] ICR1159, the employer had made a practice of employing one female counter hand and one male counter hand in many of its shops in case the customers proved to be difficult in these particular locations.  The women were paid less than the men on the basis that the man had a “security function.”  In the court’s view, this did not constitute a difference of practical importance as both employees did the same job and had to deal with unpleasant customers.  It was noted that Section 1(5) required a comparison to be made between the things the man and the woman actually do in their jobs and the frequency with which they are done, rather than between the things they could be required to do under their contracts, but with which are not in fact done.

3.5	It is established that if a man exercises greater responsibility than a woman this may amount to a difference of practical importance (Eaton Limited v Nuttall [1997] ICR 272).  Skill levels will be taken into account by the tribunal as in, for example, the case of Falconer v Campbell and Computer Services Limited.  In this case the EAT upheld the tribunal’s decision that there was a difference of practical importance between the computer work done by the woman concerned and that of her chosen comparator as the comparator’s work was frequently more complex and required a greater understanding of client applications.  

3.6	Qualifications and training may in certain circumstances have an impact on the “like work” test.  In Angestelltenbetriebsrat v Wiener Gebietskrankenkasse [2000] ICR 1134, the European Court of Justice was called upon to decide on whether the pay differential applied to a group of graduate psychologists (amongst them the claimants) as compared to their higher paid comparators who had first trained as doctors, but all of whom were doing the same job.  The European Court of Justice found that although the psychologists and doctors employed as psychotherapists performed seemingly identical activities in treating their patients, they drew upon knowledge and skills acquired in very different disciplines.  The national court had also emphasised that the doctors were also qualified to perform other tasks in a field not open to the psychologists.  The European Court concluded that where two groups of employees do the same job but are recruited on the basis of different training qualifications and can be asked to do different tasks as a result of that training, the two groups are not employed on the same work for the purposes of the right to claim equal pay.

3.7	If a woman has established that she has engaged on like work or broadly similar work, the responsibility then shifts to the respondent employer to show that the pay differential between the claims on her comparator is genuinely due to a material factor which is not in itself a difference of sex.  The criteria were set out in Glasgow City Council and Other v Marshall [2000] ICR 196, the leading judgment in that case was given by Lord Nicholls who indicated that once the burden had passed to the employer to show that the explanation for the variation is not tainted with sex, the employer must satisfy the tribunal on several matters.  First, that the reason is genuine and not a sham or pretence.  Secondly, that the less favourable treatment is due to this reason.  In this regard the factor must be material, i.e. it must be significant and relevant.  Thirdly, the reason is not “the difference of sex” which includes any form of sex discrimination whether direct or indirect.  Fourthly, the factor relied upon is, or in a case within section 1 (2)(c) may be a material difference, i.e. a significant and relevant difference between the woman’s case and the man’s case.  Significantly the House of Lords in that case found that an employer who proves the absence of sex discrimination, whether direct or indirect, is under no obligation to prove a “good” reason for the pay disparity.

4.	DECISION

4.1.	Were the claimants employed on “like work” or broadly similar work as their Recruitment Team Leader comparators, and in particular,  Gary McAlorum ?

This is the first question we have to address and it forms the nub of the issue for the claimants’ case. We have considered this matter very carefully, and taking account of the guidance in the case law, we have concluded that the claimants were not employed on like work with their comparators, the Recruitment Team Leaders.  While there were some administrative duties which were common to the team leader role, it is clear that the Recruitment Team Leaders’ job involved ongoing project management in dealing with a wide range of recruitment exercises, setting them up, making arrangements for the recruitment process itself, any testing or assessment of candidates, advertising and short listing as well as the interview process and final appointment. In the process, they had regular meetings with staff from the various government departments for whom they carried out the recruitment exercises. This was quite different to the meetings which the claimants had with civil service staff, which related to specific teething problems with the new computer system and the means of resolving them: while these were projects, they were in response to initial problems with a new system and were not a continuing feature of the job. Further, these meetings should in fact have been the responsibility of the claimants’ line manager, Mr Smyth. Although he clearly had confidence in the claimants’ abilities and was content to let them conduct these meetings, it was a concern to Mr Eigenheer that this situation had developed and he advised it should cease.

4.2	While the claimants carried out the full range of duties specified which related to absence management, the work in relation to recruitment exercises was very 
different. We do not accept the claimants’ contention that the recruitment team leaders’ role was as transactional in nature as theirs. It is clear that there was a more proactive, advisory role in recruitment exercises, suggesting the appropriate way to proceed according to the number and level of positions to be filled, arranging the carrying out of testing and assessments. This was reflected in the educational qualifications for the respective jobs, in that the Absence Team Leaders were required to have GCSE level qualifications, and the Recruitment Team Leaders needed to be willing to work towards the BPS Level A and B qualifications. The fact that some of the Recruitment Team Leaders were not working towards these qualifications or the CIPD qualification, which was desirable, was a concern to Mr Eigenheer, but did not in his view mean that the role of the Recruitment Team Leader was “reduced” to the same work as the Absence Team Leader. We agree, given that we must look at the work actually done by the claimants and their comparators, not just the job descriptions.

4.3	We have also considered the comments by Mr Wallace and Mr Eigenheer, relating to the Service Level Agreement and the respective “exposure” of the Absence Team Leaders and the Recruitment Team Leaders to incur penalties on the Service Level Agreements. We were not given sufficient detail as to how they reached their conclusion that the Recruitment Team Leaders had 5.5 times the exposure to penalties of the Absence Team Leaders to enable us to assess if that was correct or not, but what is clear is that no actual penalties were levied, and so we do not consider that this issue is helpful to us in reaching a conclusion.

4.4	Taking all of these factors together, we have reached the view that the claimants were not employed on “like work” or broadly similar work with that of their comparators. Because both are team leader roles, there are some common elements as we acknowledge and as were noted by Mr Eigenheer. But the practical differences in their respective roles set out above are material, in that the Recruitment Team Leader role is proactive and project based, involving much more direct client contact than the Absence Team Leader role, where projects 
were largely confined to problem solving for the computer system.  Given the conclusion we have reached on the first question, we do not need to consider the second question. We order that the claimants’ claim is dismissed.

Chairman:

Date and Place of hearing: 22, 23, 24 and 25 November 2010, Belfast.

Date decision recorded in the register and issued to the parties: