UK: Short And Sweet – Compensatory Rest Period Did Not Have To Be Continuous

Under the Working Time Regulations 1998, subject to any collective or workforce agreement, workers have a right to an uninterrupted rest period of at least 20 minutes spent away from their work station. However, there are special cases (including security activities and some transport services) where that right does not apply. Workers in those sectors are entitled to "an equivalent period of compensatory rest". The Court of Appeal had to decide in Network Rail Infrastructure Ltd v Crawford whether such a period of compensatory rest also has to last for an uninterrupted 20 minute period and found that it does not.

Mr Crawford was a relief railway signaller who was not entitled to an "ordinary" 20 minute rest break but who was entitled to "an equivalent period of compensatory rest". Although he was able to take a number of shorter rest breaks totalling more than 20 minutes during a shift, he was not able to take a single uninterrupted break of 20 minutes. He argued that this meant he was not receiving "an equivalent period of compensatory rest". The tribunal rejected his claim but the EAT upheld it on appeal, finding that to be "an equivalent period of compensatory rest" a break had to be for an uninterrupted period of 20 minutes.

The Court of Appeal overturned the EAT's decision. A compensatory rest break is not intended to import an identical obligation to that which applies in relation to "ordinary" rest breaks. The intention is for the worker to have a rest break that has the same value as an "ordinary" break in terms of its contribution to his or her well-being. Whether a rest break is "equivalent" in that properly understood sense is a matter for the judgment of the specialist employment tribunal having regard to the relevant evidence. The EAT was wrong to find that the earlier Court of Appeal decision Hughes v Corps of Commissionaires Management Ltd was authority for the proposition that a 20 minute compensatory rest-break has to be uninterrupted.

In this case the tribunal was entitled to find that breaks that cumulatively amounted to at least 20 minutes satisfied the obligation to provide a compensatory rest break. There was extensive evidence before it that numerous shorter rest breaks were likely to be better for the worker's health and safety in light of the demands of the job than a single continuous rest break.

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