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Pod 6, The Engine Rooms, Station Road
Chepstow
Monmouthshire

01633 730907

For more than 10 years we have provided companies of all sizes and in a variety of sectors with uncomplicated, innovative and affordable human resources advice and on-site support ensuring that your people are an asset to your company and not a liability.

News

With the National Minimum Wage (NMW) now almost fifteen years old, and with another increase pending on 1st April 2017 HMRC have issued a list of the most elaborate excuses they've been given by employers for not paying the appropriate rates:

Named and Shamed For Not Paying the National Minimum Wage

Alan Kitto

The UK Government has published the names of 239 companies this week that have collectively failed to pay 22,400 workers the National Minimum Wage (NMW).

Three household names were included in the list:

  • The Card Factory owes 10,256 workers an average of £41.94
  • Home Bargains owes 6,743 workers an average of £40.37
  • Bristol City FC owes 50 workers around £285.00 each

The five main reasons for falling foul (no pun intended in relation to Bristol City FC) this time include:

  1. Deducting the cost of items such uniforms from wages
  2. Underpaying apprentices (such as not paying them to attend college)
  3. Failing to pay for travel time (where this is also working time)
  4. Misusing the accommodation offset 
  5. Using the wrong time periods for calculating pay

In respect of this last reason, you may want to re-read our news item from February 2018 entitled National Minimum Wage and Salaried Employees.

The penalties for not paying the NMW are having to pay the back pay to the workers involved plus penalties of up to 200% of the arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker .. as well as being named and shamed.

The Low Pay Commission Chairman, Bryan Sanderson said, 

'It is crucial that employers understand their responsibilities and workers know their rights around the minimum wage.'
'That is why active enforcement and effective communication from Government is so important.'
'It is therefore encouraging to see that HMRC has recovered unpaid wages for the largest number of workers yet in this round of naming and shaming.'

So far £10.8million in backpay for around 90,000 workers has been recovered with more than 1,900 employers fined a total of £8.4million.

For more information on ensuring you're paying your workers the NMW, give us a call.