Changes in activities due to modernisation and innovation

The SPC regulations, when originally drafted, were intended to apply on a change in service provider even if the new provider planned to provide the services in a “novel or innovative” way, for example, replacing a manual process with a computerised one. However, tribunals have not always taken this approach, as cases like OCS Group v Jones demonstrate (see page 19).

When consulting in 2013, the coalition government again suggested that the requirement for activities to be “fundamentally the same” does not exempt “new or innovative service offerings” from TUPE protection. In practice, everything depends on the facts of each case and the approach of tribunal judges (see, for example, Qlog v O’Brien on page 18).