Harvey Nichols and JD Williams among retailers named for underpaying staff

Figures released by the DBT show that N Brown-owned clothing brand JD Williams failed to pay £52,931 to 247 workers, while Harvey Nichols underpaid £7,538 to 83 of its workers. This equates to £214.29 and £90.81 per worker respectively. 

Also named on the list were Poundstretcher, accused of underpaying 16 workers by £91 on average, and B&M, where one worker was underpaid by £3,304. 

Just above JD Williams was the Midcounties Co-operative, which owed £57,775 to nine of its workers. Each of these employees was owed £6,419 back from the business, which merged with Central Co-op earlier this year. 

These violations are far smaller in scale than in previous instances that the DBT has named retailers. The largest business named in this round of disclosures was ISS Mediclean Limited, which owed back its workers more than £1.5m. 

A Harvey Nichols spokesperson told Retail Week: “Harvey Nichols cooperated fully with HMRC during a comprehensive National Minimum Wage review covering the period from February 2018 to March 2023. HMRC acknowledged that there was no deliberate breach of National Minimum Wage regulations and that Harvey Nichols made genuine efforts to look after its employees.

“A small number of historic technical issues resulted in arrears and an associated penalty. These issues were resolved immediately. HN remains committed to ensuring full compliance with all employment regulations and to providing a supportive working environment for all colleagues.”

A spokesperson for N Brown said: “Between 2016 and 2019, an oversight within our payroll processes resulted in the pay of some of our employees, who had voluntarily opted into pay deduction schemes, inadvertently falling below the national minimum wage threshold.  

“All affected current and past employees have been contacted and any repayments relating to this error were made in 2023. We took action at the time to modify our processes to prevent this from happening again. 

“N Brown is proud that we are a living wage employer and have reimbursed any colleague affected. At no point has a colleague’s contracted hourly rate been below the National Minimum Wage.”  

A statement for the Midcounties Co-operative said: ”This relates to a technical breach relating to the accommodation offset for nine colleagues. Once we became aware of the issue we took steps to address it and all those affected have been reimbursed in full.”

The other retailers named by the DBT have been contacted by Retail Week for a comment.