Requirement to deal with tips, gratuities and service charges Section 7: Enforcement Complaints to an Employment Tribunal about tips etc
Section 7 inserts section 27K, which describes the circumstances in which a worker may present a complaint to an employment tribunal and the circumstances in which the employment tribunal can consider this claim.
	Subsection (1) provides that a worker may present a complaint to an employment tribunal where the worker’s employer has failed to comply with the obligation to allocate qualifying tips, gratuities and service charges fairly in accordance with section 27D, or where it has failed to do so within the time period specified in section 27G, in relation to the relevant worker.
	Subsection (2) provides that an eligible agency worker (as defined in section 27H) may also present a complaint to an employment tribunal that an agent has not paid to the agency worker the total amount of qualifying tips which was paid to the agent by the principal (the hirer). An agency worker can make a complaint under subsection (2) even if they do not make a complaint under subsection (1) (see subsection (6)). This could occur where an agency worker is satisfied that they have been allocated a fair amount of the qualifying tips by the hirer, and that this sum has been paid on to the agent, but where the agent has failed to make a payment to the agency worker as is required.
	Subsection (3) limits the time in which a worker can make a claim to an employment tribunal to 12 months beginning with either the date of the failure to comply, or the date of the latest failure to comply where the complaint is in respect of a series of failures to comply by the employer (subsection (5)).
	Subsection (7) applies section 207B of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which means that time spent complying with the requirement to consult with the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) before instituting proceedings will not be counted for the purposes of the twelve month period. An employment tribunal may also consider a complaint after the expiry of the twelve month period if it is satisfied that it was not reasonably practicable for the worker to present the claim within that period, so long as the complaint is presented within such further period that the tribunal considers reasonable (subsection (4)).