Employment Edit: 5 June 2025

Part-time worker protections

Charging the same flat-rate fee to a part-time worker as that charged to full-time workers did not breach the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000, according to the Court of Appeal.

The claimant worked for the respondent as a part-time private hire driver. The respondent required its drivers to pay a weekly ‘circuit fee’ of £148 to gain access to the respondent’s booking system. This circuit fee was payable at the same flat rate, regardless of whether a driver was part-time or full-time. As a result, the claimant alleged that he had been treated less favourably on the ground that he was a part-time worker.

The Court of Appeal upheld the tribunal’s conclusion that the less favourable treatment (the imposition of the circuit fee at a flat rate) was not ‘on the ground that’ the claimant was a part-time worker. The tribunal noted that the claimant was charged the circuit fee because that was the means by which the respondent obtained a revenue from its business and the way in which the claimant obtained access to bookings. The claimant was not charged the full fee simply because he was working fewer hours than his fellow drivers.

The Court of Appeal judges differed in their view on whether the part-time status of the worker needs to be the ‘sole’ cause or the ‘effective and pre-dominant’ cause of the less favourable treatment in order to fall foul of the protections in the 2000 Regulations. The Court applied the reasoning in a Scottish authority that the part-time status must be the ‘sole’ cause – it did this in part because, had the Court of Appeal decided otherwise, the legal test in England & Wales would have been different to that in Scotland. The Court of Appeal granted leave for the claimant to appeal to the Supreme Court in order for it to provide binding authority on the right test to apply when assessing whether part-time status was the reason for the less favourable treatment.

(Augustine v Data Cars Limited)

Apprenticeship funding

The Department for Education announced last week that changes to apprenticeship funding will come into force on 1 January 2026. From that date, level 7 apprenticeships (which are equivalent to a master’s degree or post-graduate qualification) will only be government-funded for apprentices aged 16-21 and apprentices under 25 who are care leavers or who have an Education, Health and Care Plan. The government states that these changes are to refocus investment towards young people at the start of their working lives, rather than those already in work with higher levels of prior learning and qualifications.

Where an apprentice started their level 7 apprenticeship before 1 January 2026, their apprenticeship will continue to be government-funded through to completion regardless of their age. Those employers who offer level 7 apprenticeships will need to review their arrangements and consider the impact that these funding changes will have.