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Agency Workers

Agency workers may be treated as employees of the agency during the period of an assignment, even if their contracts specify they are not employees.

Mrs Dacas had been working as a temporary cleaner via the Brook Street Bureau, for Wandsworth Council for six years. Her contract was terminated summarily. The Tribunal found that she was employed by neither Brook Street nor Wandsworth. Mrs Dacas appealed against the finding that she was not an employee of Brook Street.

The EAT upheld the appeal. Since there was plainly "mutuality of obligation" (i.e. obligations on both sides – a prerequisite for a contract), and the agency exercised a considerable degree of control over her, the only possible conclusion was that she was an employee of Brook Street. Although the contract stated that she was not an employee, this would only be determinative when the other pointers were inconclusive. Here, according to the EAT, the other pointers clearly showed that Mrs Dacas was an employee of the agency.