Many job descriptions contain references to ‘any other duties which may reasonably required of you’ and the like. Members would be unwise to rely too completely on this or indeed on a Job Description on paper at all.

The Employment Appeals Tribunal has ruled that clauses of this kind impose a requirement of reasonableness on the employer’s request and that that test is whether the employee finds it reasonable, not whether the employer does.

The Tribunal also made the point that because Job Descriptions often do not represent the ‘actual duties in fact undertaken by the employee’ a tribunal is entitled to consider the duties of an applicant by reference to what the applicant has in fact been doing. Of course, ideally the two would be identical and this is a reminder to be alert to ‘mission creep’ in relation to Job descriptions.