This week, as part of round 20 of the government's naming and shaming scheme, the Department for Business and Trade published the names of 524 employers that have failed to pay the national minimum wage (NMW) following investigations by HMRC.

It is perhaps important to note that there is often some lag between a NMW breach, and an employer making this list - this latest round includes breaches that took place as far back as 2015 in some cases.  

From these 524 employers, nearly £16 million had to be repaid to over 172,000 workers together with financial penalties of up to 200% of the underpayment. 

 

The Department for Business and Trade identified that the main reasons for underpayment of the NMW included: 

 

 •  Deductions from wages for items such as food, uniform, equipment, childcare costs and salary sacrifice schemes.

 •  Unpaid working time, such as where additional work was carried out before and after a shift, where clock-in times had been rounded up, where travel time was not paid, and where a salaried hours worker worked in excess of their basic hours.

 •  Failure to pay the correct rate to apprentices, failure to pay the uprated NMW rate, failure to correctly apply the accommodation offset and failure to pay a worker in accordance with the correct work type.

It is therefore clear to see that many of these NMW breaches are more of the technical or inadvertent nature than a blatant failure to pay the proper hourly wage,  but given the significant PR consequences of making the list all employers need to ensure that they are fully up to date with the latest NMW (and NLW) regulations.