Continuity of employment: Retrospective arrangement cannot preserve continuity

In Morris v Walsh Western UK Ltd [1997] IRLR 562, the EAT holds that an employer's ex post facto agreement to treat the period of an employee's absence from work as a period of unpaid leave was insufficient to preserve his continuity of employment. As a matter of construction of the relevant statutory provision, an "arrangement" whereby an employee is treated as continuing in employment must be in place when the employee is absent from work, not afterwards.