Remuneration in UK Law

It is contained in the statutory requirement that the payment, if it is to be the subject of assessment, must arise "from" the office or employment. For my part I think that their meaning is adequately conveyed by saying that, while it is not sufficient to render a payment assessable that an employee would not have received it unless he had been an employee, it is assessable if it has been paid to him in return for acting as or being an employee.

I know of no principle upon which he can claim as damages for breach of one service agreement compensation for remuneration which might have become due under some imaginary future agreement which the plaintiffs did not make with him but might have done if they wished.

It is generally recognised that pensionable employment is more valuable to a man than the mere amount of his weekly wage. It is more valuable because by reason of the terms of his employment money is being regularly set aside to swell his ultimate pension rights whether on retirement or on disablement. The products of the sums paid into the pension fund are in fact delayed remuneration for his current work.

Like every other kind of insurance what he gets back depends on how things turn out. He may never be off duty and may die before retiring age leaving no dependants. Or he may by getting a retirement or disablement pension get much more back than has been paid in on his behalf. I can see no relevant difference between this and any other form of insurance. So, if insurance benefits are not deductible in assessing damages and remoteness is out of the way, why should his pension be deductible?

In my judgment the question whether non payment of agreed wages, or interference by an employer with a salary package, is or is not fundamental to the continued existence of a contract of employment, depends on the critical distinction to be drawn between an employer's failure to pay, or delay in paying, agreed remuneration, and his deliberate refusal to do so.

It is a settled principle of law that if a public authority purports to dismiss the holder of a public office in excess of its powers, or in breach of natural justice, or unlawfully (categories which overlap), the dismissal is, as between the public authority and the office-holder, null, void and without legal effect, at any rate once a court of competent jurisdiction so declares or orders.