An Ormskirk company boss has apologised after his well established cleaning firm was fined after falling foul of what he says is 'complicated' Government legislation on minimum pay.

This morning, Chris Wootton of Poppies (http://poppies.co.uk/wls/) on Burscough St. was refreshingly frank with QLocal reporter Roger Blaxall on how the issue emerged - and the steps taken on stopping it ever happening again.

He said: "For 23 years we have been proud to employ some hundreds of locally based staff and provided cleaning help to thousands of homes and businesses throughout West Lancashire and Sefton.

"Despite our wage offering always being above NMW/NLW we were devastated to learn in April of last that our payroll process failed the NMW test on a technicality.

"To explain what happened we used to take a small deposit from our employees first wage, which was later returned to them if and when they left our employment and returned the uniform that we provide. It is as a result of this deduction from the first months wage that has caused some of our staff to earn less than NMW in their first month, even though in every subsequent month they would earn more.

"We were given 28 days to repay these deposits (with interest) to both our current and any ex staff who had been affected by this error – an exercise which was completed by August of last year, well ahead of the deadline.

"The great disappointment for us is that had we not deducted and repaid the deposit; the inspectors commented on how impressed they were by our processes and record keeping. Furthermore, if we had made a deduction for the same reasons at the end of employment then this would not have failed the test.

"We join a growing list of respected employers such as John Lewis and Wagamama’s who have inadvertently contravened a complex set of rules and apologise for any distress this has caused," he concluded.

For more, click here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/n...m-wage-workers