THE INDUSTRIAL TRIBUNALS

CASE REF: 2036/10

CLAIMANT: 		Stephen Beck

RESPONDENT: 	 	Police Service of Northern Ireland

DECISION 

The decision of the tribunal is that the claimant has not suffered an unlawful deduction of wages and his claim is dismissed. 

Constitution of Tribunal:

Chairman (sitting alone): 		Ms Fionnuala Oliver

Appearances:

The claimant appeared and represented himself.

The respondent was represented by Ms Nessa Murnaghan BL instructed by The Crown Solicitor’s Office.

Sources of Evidence

1.	The tribunal considered the Claim and the Response and also heard oral evidence from Mrs McCormack the Head of Human Resources in PSNI.

The Claim and the Defence

2.	The claimant claimed unlawful deduction of wages on the basis that he had not received his full entitlement to sick pay.  The respondent considered that the correct sick pay had been paid for the correct period.  The claimant indicated that he had not seen a copy of Annex 1 Regulation 27 until recently.

Issues

3.	The issue is whether the respondent has correctly calculated the period of sickness to be taken into account before reducing the claimant’s pay to half pay.

Findings of Fact

4.	The claimant commenced employment with the respondent on 10 March 1985.

The claimant was absent on sick leave on the following dates:

1 March 2009 to 13 March 2009                  13 days

30 April 2009                                                  1 day

2 July 2009 to 4 July 2009                             3 days

8 December 2009 to 2 June 2010               177 days   

The claimant’s rate of sick pay is governed by Service Procedure SP 8/2009 which replaces an earlier Service Procedure on the same terms as far as this appeal is concerned and by Annex 1 regulation 27 of Police Service of Northern Ireland Regulations 2007 and this was accepted by the claimant.

The Law

5.	Section 8 of SP 8/2009 states as follows:

	“In accordance with regulations a police officer who is absent on sick leave shall be entitled to full pay for 183 days in any rolling one year period.  When this entitlement to full pay is exhausted they shall be entitled to half pay for the remainder of that one year period.”

Paragraph 2 of Annex 1 regulation 27 states as follows;

“The period during which sick pay shall be paid and the rate of sick pay in respect of any period of sick leave shall be calculated by deducting from the member’s entitlement on the first day, the aggregate of periods of paid absence during the twelve months immediately preceding the first day of absence.”

Application of the Law and Findings of fact to the Issues

6. 	The terms of Paragraph 2 of Annex 1 regulation 27 make it clear that sick pay is calculated by looking at the first day of sickness.  The relevant first day in this case is 8 December 2009.  At that time the claimant had taken 17 days of paid absence in the preceding twelve months.  He was therefore entitled to a further 166 days.  This took the claimant up to 23 May 2010.  After 23 May 2010, the claimant was no longer entitled to full pay and the respondent was entitled to reduce the claimant’s pay to half pay.  It follows that there has been no unlawful deduction of wages by the respondent and the claimant’s claim is dismissed.

Chairman:

Date and place of hearing:   10 November 2010, Belfast.	

Date decision recorded in register and issued to parties: