The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has updated its guidance on HMRC’s enforcement of the national minimum wage (NMW), providing clarification around when the NMW is payable for time when a worker is permitted to sleep.
Acknowledging that the former guidance was potentially misleading in this regard, the secretary of state has issued a direction specifying when a notice of underpayment should not impose a penalty. The direction provides for a transition period following the publication of the updated guidance on 26 July. The direction states that a notice of underpayment is not to impose a financial penalty where:
part of the underpayment is attributable to the treatment of, or arrangements concerning, time when the worker was working and was, by arrangement, permitted to sleep; and
that part of the underpayment occurred in a pay reference period that ended before 26 July 2017.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has updated its guidance on HMRC’s enforcement of the national minimum wage (NMW), providing clarification around when the NMW is payable for time when a worker is permitted to sleep.
Acknowledging that the former guidance was potentially misleading in this regard, the secretary of state has issued a direction specifying when a notice of underpayment should not impose a penalty. The direction provides for a transition period following the publication of the updated guidance on 26 July. The direction states that a notice of underpayment is not to impose a financial penalty where:
part of the underpayment is attributable to the treatment of, or arrangements concerning, time when the worker was working and was, by arrangement, permitted to sleep; and
that part of the underpayment occurred in a pay reference period that ended before 26 July 2017.
