UT/2023/000049 - [2024] UKUT 00233 (TCC)

Before the FTT, Mr Firth referred to the alternative meanings of “regularly” in relation to statutory obligations regarding school attendance by a child suggested by the Supreme Court in Isle of Wight Council v Platt [2017] UKSC 28. He suggested that the relevant alternative meaning in section 339(2) must be attendance “sufficiently often”, and an employee could not be said to attend a workplace sufficiently often if “only there for a day or for a week”. He suggested that attendance for a month might be “sufficiently often”. Mr Firth acknowledged that this would lead to the odd result that an employee who expected to attend a workplace for several months would nevertheless be able to claim travel and subsistence expenses for the first month of the assignment.

The FTT considered that such an anomaly demonstrated why Mr Firth’s construction could not be correct, and also referred to the problem that his construction “requires an arbitrary line to be drawn in order to determine the point at which attendance qualifies as regular”. The FTT stated as follows, at FTT[165]:

The FTT rejected Mr Firth’s argument that this could not be correct for an assignment of one day because attendance on only one day could not be “regular”.