Car valet-operator Autoclenz entered into written agreements with individuals to clean cars for their client, British Car Auctions. The agreements were drafted to look like self-employment. For example, valeters were paid on a piecework basis and were responsible for their own tax and national insurance. In theory they were obliged to provide their own equipment. In reality the company supplied all the cleaning materials and group insurance, deducting the costs from their pay. Branded uniforms were provided.

The valeters claimed the National Minimum Wage and holiday pay but Autoclenz argued that they were self-employed. The Supreme Court said that to establish someone’s employment status involves looking at the whole context, not just the written contract terms, taking into account, in particular, the relative bargaining power of the parties.

Whatever the documentation might have suggested, it was clear that these valeters were not self-employed business people operating on their own account. They had no control over how they did their work or their working hours, they had no economic interest in the way the work was organised, they were not free to source materials for themselves, they worked under the direction and control of Autoclenz who prepared their invoices and decided their rates of pay, and even though the contract documentation allowed valeters to work for other businesses or to send substitutes to do their work, in practice this very rarely happened.

The Supreme Court concluded that the men were employees working under contracts of employment and their claims for the National Minimum Wage and statutory holiday pay were successful.

Autoclenz v Belcher [2011] UKSC 41

www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2011/41.html