• a former director of an employment agency sentenced today in a Bristol court must pay compensation to 2 workers and fines totalling £5,154 after a government prosecution and has been banned from being a director for 5 years
• the former director of Cotterell and Gifford employment agency pleaded guilty to 4 charges including withholding wages and failing to give information to workers
• the prosecution comes after the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate launched an investigation based on a worker complaint

A director has been ordered to pay wages and expenses totalling £5,145 at a hearing at Bristol Magistrates’ Court today (29 August 2018). The prosecution comes after an investigation by the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate – a government body that enforces rights on behalf of agency workers.

National Recruitment Limited, trading as Cotterell and Gifford, withheld wages to 2 workers for work they did in December 2015 and February 2016. The director was also guilty of failing to provide the right information to his workers when they started their jobs. He has been disqualified from being a director for 5 years.

Kelly Tolhurst, Small Business Minister, said:

Workers deserve to be paid for the work they do. We take complaints from workers seriously and will take action against employers that wilfully ignores the law and exploits workers.

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.

The government has recently consulted through the Good Work plan on how best to deliver on its commitment to:

• provide all 1.2 million agency workers with a clear breakdown of who pays them and any costs or charges deducted from their wages
• consider repealing laws allowing agencies to employ workers on cheaper rates
• enforce vulnerable workers’ holiday and sick pay for the first time
• give workers a list of day-one rights including holiday and sick pay entitlements
• introduce a new right for all workers to request a more stable contract to provide greater financial security for those on flexible contracts
• introduce a new naming scheme for employers who fail to pay employment tribunal awards to quadruple employment tribunal fines for employers showing malice, spite or gross oversight to £20,000 and considering increasing penalties for employers who have previously lost similar cases

Anyone with a complaint or query about an employment agency or about the law applying to agencies should contact the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate by email at eas@beis.gov.uk, by the online form on GOV.UK – or contact the Acas helpline on 0300 123 1100.

1. The Insolvency Service brought charges against Nicholas Brown on behalf of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy under regulation 12 and regulation 14 of the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 (as amended) and Section 5(2) of the Employment Agencies Act 1973 (as amended).

2. It is a criminal offence for an employment business to withhold from a work-seeker any payment due to that work-seeker for work that they have carried out whilst supplied to a hirer by the employment business.

3. Information about the Employment Agencies Act 1973 and the regulations can be accessed through GOV.UK.

More children than ever before are now living with a working adult, new data from April to June shows, as the number of UK households without a regular income from work fell to 1.27 million – a record low.

As the UK employment rate rose to 75.6% in the 3 months to June, the number of households where no one earns a regular wage fell by 964,000 since 2010.

An all-time high of around 9 in 10 children now live in a home where at least one adult works, taking tens of thousands of children out of poverty as the number of children in workless households fell by 29,000 in the last year.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Esther McVey has said:

One of the best ways to tackle poverty and give children a better chance in life, is to have a working adult in the house. It gives them a role-model to learn from and brings financial security to the home.

Since 2010 1.45 million more children now live in a household where all the adults work. 75% of children from workless families moved out of poverty when their parents entered into full-time work. Since 2010, we’ve seen 300,000 fewer children living in absolute poverty.

Getting a job means more than just a wage, it’s a way out of poverty and welfare dependency.

The government is committed to building a stronger, fairer economy that works for everyone. Since 2010 an average of 1,000 people have gained work every day, supporting people from every part of the UK and every section of society to take control of their lives and build themselves a better future.

Today’s data follows new research this month from the Resolution Foundation which found that the majority of new jobs created since 2008/2009 were taken by the poorest third of UK households.

As more households now benefit from work, there are now one million fewer people living in absolute poverty compared with 2010, including 300,000 fewer children.

The government is committed to building a stronger, fairer economy and that is why we are improving the welfare system through Universal Credit, helping people stay in work longer through the Fuller Working Lives strategy and tackling inequalities in employment as highlighted by the Race Disparity Audit.

The number of children in households with all adults in work has increased by 177,000 in the last year.

Since 2010 there are 1.45 million more children living in a home with all adults in work.

637,000 fewer children are living in workless households since 2010.

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The SS Mendi sank off the Isle of Wight in 1917 while carrying more than 800 men of the South African native labour corps to support the war effort on the Western Front.

It was the worst maritime disaster in South Africa’s history, and the Mendi bell – which has become a symbol of the country’s First World War remembrance – was found and restored last year after being originally salvaged from the shipwreck in the 1980s.

The Mendi bell was given to BBC reporter Steve Humphrey in 2017 in a plastic bag at Swanage Pier, Dorset, after an anonymous phone call.

He in turn gave it to the Maritime & Coastguard Agency’s receiver of wreck, Alison Kentuck, who then had to determine legal ownership of the bell and make the decision about a permanent home for the bell. For a year it has been on display in the Sea City museum in Southampton while ownership research was undertaken and a permanent home was found.

Alison said: ‘In these cases I have to consider the merits of each application to have the bell. But in the end, because this bell is such a poignant part of South Africa’s history, it seemed only right to return it.

‘607 black troops from the South African native labour corps who set sail from Cape Town just over a century ago, like so many others, never returned home to their families.

‘It’s good to know that the Mendi bell is back in South Africa where it will be able to provide a focal point of remembrance for the people of South Africa and in particular the families of those who died.’

The SS Mendi sank on 21 February 1917 and 646 men drowned.

On 28 August the bell was presented to the President of South Africa by the Prime Minister Theresa May at a ceremony in Cape Town.