The latest round of “naming and shaming” of employers who fail to pay workers the National Minimum Wage (NMW) – or National Living Wage for those aged 25 or over – has been published.
In contrast to previous figures, the care sector features less prevalently. Hair and beauty, hospitality, and retail businesses are cited as the worst offenders.
Residential care home and domiciliary care providers do feature, but across the care sector as a whole, day nurseries have more listed breaches.
At a time when HMRC has responded to lobbying from the care sector regarding inconsistencies in Government advice on NMW rates of pay for sleep-in shifts (by the announcement of a short suspension of penalties against care providers for breaching NMW rates of pay in respect of sleep-in pay) this news demonstrates a recognition that the care industry has invested time and resource into rectifying historic pay arrangements which may not have been NMW compliant.
The current feedback we receive from the industry is that providers are alive to the issue and are committed to ensuring staff are paid at the correct rates, whilst balancing tight margins in view of local authority funding cuts.
