Dewsbury nursery owner says 'red-tape nightmare' led to staff wages row

Lynda Quigley, who runs Child’s Play Day Nursery on Thornhill Road, was said to owe more than £20,000 to 40 workers.

The nursery was one of 191 employers on a “name and shame” list issued by the Government which said a total of £2.1 million was owed to 34,000 workers.

Mrs Quigley, an experienced nursery operator with 21 years in the business, said she felt she had been victimised for something that wasn’t a deliberate attempt to avoid paying staff what they were due.

In a statement she said: “I have already suffered thousands of pounds in costs as well as defamation to my character and considerable stress, all as a result of a misunderstanding and red-tape nightmare, despite immediate rectification actions.”

Mrs Quigley said she had been transparent and fully co-operative when an investigator came to the nursery to check payment records.

“I am firmly of the belief that the incident was not actually a problem of my wages not meeting the minimum requirements but instead caused by a misunderstanding of deductions made for legitimate childcare services and training costs when dealing with net wage totals," she said.

“I feel very strongly that the cause of this was not intentional or malicious and I had no knowledge of any errors at the time.

"The inconsistencies were the product of extremely hard to locate legislation governing the deductions for prior-agreed childcare costs as well as contractually agreed training costs (should a staff member leave prematurely).

“The rectification actions were simply that I had to pay all this deducted money back to the staff as ‘wages’ for them then to only pay it back to me again as ‘costs'.

"This really was a red-tape administrative issue.”

Mrs Quigley said she was “shocked” to have been deemed to have failed to pay the correct wages when she employed both an accountant and a payroll bureau to handle wages and financial matters.

Even the accountant took five hours to find the relevant legislation that showed the deductions had been handling incorrectly.

She added: “This leads me to believe I will not be the only nursery operating under such incorrect advice.”

Mrs Quigley said a total of £20,402.44 had been repaid, along with £5,890 in penalties. She had also had to pay £960 in accountant’s fees.

As a result of the mix-up she had to reclaim the cost of childcare from her staff. One member of staff failed to pay and now owes £5,907.99 including costs in a case which goes back three years.

Mrs Quigley said the problems were rectified three years ago and she now made every effort to ensure her payroll was correct.