The government has successfully prosecuted a former director of an employment agency after receiving a complaint from a worker.
The former director of Cotterell and Gifford employment agency, Nicholas Brown, pleaded guilty to four charges including withholding wages and failing to give information to workers.
He was sentenced at Bristol Magistrates’ Court and ordered to pay compensation to two workers and fines totalling £5,154. He has also been banned from being a director for five years.
The prosecution followed an investigation by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate – a government body that enforces rights on behalf of agency workers. It found that National Recruitment Limited, trading as Cotterell and Gifford, withheld wages to two workers for work they did in December 2015 and February 2016. The director was also found guilty of failing to provide the right information to his workers when they started their jobs.
“Workers deserve to be paid for the work they do. We take complaints from workers seriously and will take action against employers that wilfully ignore the law and exploit workers,” said Kelly Tolhurst, Small Business Minister.
“We’re going further to enhance and protect the rights of all workers. In our Good Work plan we have set out new plans to make agency workers more aware of their rights and give them the right to request a more predictable contract.”
Under the Good Work plan the government plans to: provide agency workers with a clear breakdown of who pays them and any costs or charges deducted from their wages; enforce vulnerable workers’ holiday and sick pay; give workers a list of day-one rights; introduce a new right for workers to request a more stable contract; and introduce a naming scheme for employers that fail to pay employment tribunal awards.
