MEZIESBLOG

Holland & Barrett, British Gas owner Centrica, and Starbucks franchisee EG Group are among the firms being named and shamed for failing to pay some of their staff the minimum wage.

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has released a list of 491 employers that underpaid workers over several years.

They’ve been fined £10.2m after 42,000 people were left out of pocket.

EG Group short-changed its workers the most, according to the government’s latest investigation of pay between 2018 and 2023.

The company, which runs some Starbucks franchises in the UK and used to operate petrol forecourt businesses, failed to pay £824,384 to 3,317 workers.

Centrica failed to pay £167,815 to 356 workers, Go Outdoors owed £240,106 to 2,058 workers, and Holland & Barrett should have paid £153,079 more to 2,551 employees.

What did the employers say?

A spokesman for EG Group said the underpayments took place between 2015 and 2019, and have been “fully rectified”. 

“Once these issues were identified, we implemented robust remedies to ensure future compliance in recognition of our employees’ vital contribution to our business.”

A spokesman for Centrica said: “This issue relates to a small number of historic technical errors which was put right as soon as it was identified.”

It related primarily to salary sacrifice arrangements and training bonds rather than take-home pay, they said.

Centrica added that it was a “vocal advocate of the real living wage”.

A spokeswoman for Holland & Barrett said the issue took place between 2015–2021 and was fully resolved in 2022.

They said they were “disappointed that naming has occurred over three years after the matter was settled”.

“This was not a case of deliberate underpayment. The issue stemmed from legacy practices such as requiring team members to wear specific shoes, unpaid training completed at home, and time spent preparing for shifts at our Burton distribution site.”

A spokeswoman for Go Outdoors said the payments were settled in 2022 and related to “practices pre-dating the acquisition and integration of the business by JD Sports following an HMRC review”.