Ms F Ohaka v Care Solutions Recruitment Agency Ltd (in compulsory liquidation) and Secretary of State for Business and Trade: 6040796/2026

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Case No 6040796/2026

Between

Ms F OhakaClaimant

Care Solutions Recruitment Agency Ltd (in compulsory liquidation) and Secretary of State for Business and TradeRespondent

Before

Employment Judge Barker

Not represented for respondent

Date 8 July 2026

JUDGMENT

The claimant was not an employee of the first respondent. She was an agency worker.

REASONS

[1]Ms Ohaka worked for Care Solutions Recruitment Agency Limited from 12 February 2022 until 30 March 2025. The agency has gone into liquidation, on 21 May 2025, owing Ms Ohaka and her colleagues unpaid wages and other sums.

[2]She claims for unpaid wages, holiday pay and a redundancy payment. As Care Solutions Recruitment Agency Limited is in liquidation, this claim now involves the Secretary of State

[3]Ms Ohaka was a support worker. She carried out caring duties on behalf of Manchester City Council for disabled individuals. She was paid through the agency, not directly by Manchester City Council. She never took paid holidays and she has not been off sick. She says she never refused work when it was offered to her by the agency, and there were never any periods when there was no work for her to do. She says that she and another member of staff worked right to the end for the agency when others refused to do so, because the others were concerned that they would not get paid. She says that she rarely if ever saw her managers from the agency. They would not seem to have been in any way involved in her day to day management or supervision.

[4]She has sent her payslips in to the Tribunal, and I have looked at them. They are issued by Care Solutions Agency, but they refer to the agency as the “employer”. The claimant signed an opt-out agreement relating to the 48 hour weekly working limit on 12 February 2022 and the opt-out document refers to her as “the employee”.

[5]She argues that this is evidence that she is an employee and so is entitled to recover unpaid wages and redundancy pay from the National Insurance Fund, via the Redundancy Payments Service.

[6]Against this, is the contract she had with the agency. It is dated 12 February 2022. It is clear that the contract does not refer to her as an “employee”, but it refers to her as a “contractor”. In section 3, it says that Ms Ohaka is not obliged to take on jobs for the agency if she does not want to and they have no responsibility to find work for her if none is available. It says that it does not need to pay her if she does not work for them. These are not terms that would usually be found in a contract of employment. I would also expect her managers to be more involved in managing and supervising her and her colleagues, if she were an employee of theirs.

[7]She says that some of her former colleagues have been paid redundancy. She was not able to give me any information about why this may have been the case or what role they used to do for the agency. She has applied for this and has been refused by the Redundancy Payments Service. The Tribunal has received a response from the Secretary of State to her application, which sets out that the Secretary of State has concluded that she is an agency worker and not an employee, and so is not eligible to recover her unpaid wages from the Redundancy Payments Service.

[8]I became concerned during the hearing that Ms Ohaka had not seen the Secretary of State’s document, and so we had a break in the hearing so that it could be emailed to her and so that she and Mr George could read it. After the break she told me that she had seen it before today. We discussed whether there was anything else that Ms Ohaka might be able to tell me that may point to her being an employee.

[9]The sound quality on the video connection during the hearing today was very poor. It was very difficult for Ms Ohaka to hear me and it was very difficult for me to hear her. Mr George did his best to help and he was able to clarify some points so that I could hear them more clearly, but even then it was very difficult to communicate.

[10]On the basis of the information before me, I find that Ms Ohaka was an agency worker of the respondent, Care Solutions Recruitment Agency Limited. As I told Ms Ohaka, agency workers are not entitled to compensation from the government if the agency becomes insolvent, only employees are. This is set out in the Employment Rights Act 1996, in section 182. She said that this was very unfair. Unfortunately, my judgment can only be based on what the law allows and not simply what feels fair. The law only allows for me to find that Ms Ohaka was an employee if the evidence is before me to show that she was.

[11]The evidence before me shows on balance that she was not. Although the payslip and the opt-out document refer to her as an “employee”, these are standard documents that don’t carry the weight of a contract of employment. They are therefore not enough to prove her case, given that there appears to be a clear agreement called “Terms of Engagement of a Contractor” which shows that she was an agency worker, and information I have about her day to day work that suggests that the agency did not have the usual level of control or supervision of her work that would be present in a contract of employment. Reconsideration of the decision

[12]When I gave Ms Ohaka my decision, she asked what she might be able to do next. Given that we experienced considerable difficulties communicating during the hearing, I was also concerned that there may be something in this judgment that I have missed or misheard.

[13]Once Ms Ohaka has read this decision, if there is something that has been missed by me that she thinks would make a difference to showing that she is an employee and not an agency worker, she is to write to the Tribunal, within 14 days of the date this judgment was sent to the parties, to ask me to reconsider my decision on the basis of this additional information. Approved by: