Waite LJ held that Mr McMeechan was an employee of the agency for this period and so he could claim from the Secretary of State for unpaid wages.

"(2) There is nothing inherently repugnant, whether to good relations in the workplace or in law, about a state of affairs under which, in an employment agency case, the status of employee of the agency is allocated to a temporary worker in respect of each assignment actually worked - notwithstanding that the same worker may not be entitled to employee status under his general terms of engagement.... (3) The force of (2) is not lost in cases where - following what appears to be a common (though potentially confusing) practice - the agency and the temporary worker have committed themselves to standard terms and conditions which are intended to apply both to the general engagement and to the individual stints worked under it.

That does not make the task of the tribunals any easier, and is liable to lead to the unsatisfactory consequence that the same condition may need to be given a different significance in the one context from that accorded to it in the other.

Those disadvantages do not, however, supply any valid reason for denying the temporary worker or the contractor the right to have the issue of contractual status judged separately in the two contexts.

That is a question which, though it remains essentially one of fact and degree (O'Kelly's case at page 124 and Lee v Chung [1990] IRLR 236) is one which largely falls to be determined on the interpretation of the Conditions.

On the other (contract of service) side are to be set the reservation of a power of dismissal for misconduct; the power of the contractor to bring any assignment to an end; the provision of a review procedure if such termination takes place; the establishment of a grievance procedure; the importation referred to in (1) above; and the stipulation of an hourly pay rate, which is subject to deductions for unsatisfactory time-keeping, work, attitude, or misconduct.