All the Lancashire firms ‘named and shamed’ for minimum wage breaches

Employers including Blackpool Pleasure Beach and a charity which provides free holidays for children have been “named and shamed” by the Government for failing to pay the minimum wage.

Six Lancashire firms were among 200 employers today outed by the Government for National Minimum Wage breaches. Included in the list are national firms such as WH Smith, Marks and Spencer, Argos Lloyds Pharmacy as well as much smaller companies.

Those four companies alone accounted for around £4million of underpayments across approximately 40,000 workers. However, all those included on the list have since repaid the money and faced financial penalties.

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In Lancashire, the companies included on the list are Day of Sunshine – a Lytham based charity which provided free holidays to derserving children. Blackpool Pleasure Beach was named for failing to pay 12 employees adequately and Accrington gym Central Fitness Limited underpaid one member of staff by almost £2,000

• Day of Sunshine (UK) Ltd, Lytham St Annes, FY8, failed to pay £4,275.19 to two workers.
• Blackpool Pleasure Beach Limited, Blackpool, FY4, failed to pay £2,866.95 to 12 workers.
• Central Fitness Limited, Accrington, BB5, failed to pay £1,909.17 to one worker.
• Springvale Leather Limited, Rossendale, BB4, failed to pay £1,373.23 to one worker.
• Heritage Hotels Blackpool Limited – Liquidation 16/11/22, traded as Melville Hotel, Blackpool, FY1, failed to pay £1,027.65 to two workers.
• Mr Rassul Kadir, trading as Talbot Road Car Wash, Blackpool, FY1, failed to pay £864.80 to five workers.

A spokesperson for the family-run Springvale Leather explained that its underpayment was done accidentally and that the company repaid the worker the full amount as well as compensation. They said: “In 2018 HMRC carried out a full investigation of our company and we were disappointed to discover that in 2015 we had underpaid one of our Apprentices.

“Following our own checks, we found that this had been due to a recent change in legislation for apprentices pay, that we had not been aware of at the time. We took full responsibility for our error and have since paid back the underpaid amount in full plus compensation to this person, to whom we are very sorry.

“We have now taken steps to ensure this will not happen again and with new policies in place we will ensure that in any future investigations we will not be in error. Since we started trading in 1986 we have trained countless local young people in specialist furniture making skills and will continue to do so, the apprenticeship scheme is a great opportunity for both us as a company and the young people we train, which we have always found to be very rewarding.

David Lee, chairman of Day of Sunshine, told LancsLive: “It’s been done and dusted now. It’s justified that people should pay that and we realised and rectified it.”

A Blackpool Pleasure Beach spokesperson said: “This relates to a small payroll oversight between the years of 2017 and 2019 involving 12 people, which has since been rectified.”

According to the Government, around two in five of the underpayments related to deductions from wages and a smilar amount were for failures to pay workers correctly for their working time. One in five were paying an incorrect apprenticeship rate. It added that “whilst not all minimum wage underpayments are intentional, there is no excuse for underpaying workers”.

Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business Kevin Hollinrake said: “Paying the legal minimum wage is non-negotiable and all businesses, whatever their size, should know better than to short-change hard-working staff. Most businesses do the right thing and look after their employees, but we’re sending a clear message to the minority who ignore the law: pay your staff properly or you’ll face the consequences.”