Ensuring employers comply with National Minimum Wage regulations
It is important that the Government ensures its compliance programme reflects the changing risks within the labour market, and maintains its progress in ensuring all employers pay the minimum wage. Since the government began enforcing the National Minimum Wage in April 1999, HM Revenue & Customs has identified £68 million in arrears for over 313,000 workers, according to today’s report from the National Audit Office. The number of workers identified as being owed arrears in 2015-16 was 58,000 compared to 26,000 in 2014-15. HMRC has significantly reduced the average time taken to investigate complaints about employers’ non-compliance with the National Minimum Wage, but some complainants (469 or 17% of the caseload) still have to wait over 240 days to get their cases resolved. The NAO’s analysis of HMRC’s caseload (as at December 2015), shows that 72% of open cases are less than 120 days old compared to 42% in December 2013. The time taken to investig