Employment status: Agency worker was an employee

Key points

• In Dacas v Brook Street Bureau (UK) Ltd and another [2003] IRLR 190, the EAT holds that an employment tribunal erred in law when it found an agency worker not to be an employee of the agency during the course of an individual assignment, in circumstances where an application of the test of the two minimum requirements of the degree of control and mutuality of obligations pointed overwhelmingly towards the existence of a contract of employment.
• The tribunal was not entitled, in those circumstances, to treat the "temporary worker agreement" entered into by the parties at the outset of their relationship, and which stated that their original intention was not to enter into an employment relationship, as determinative of the issue.