Tue, 24 April 2012

A now-dissolved catering and cleaning recruiter has been found guilty of withholding wages to seven workers in late 2008. The workers were mostly students at Loughborough University looking for part-time work.

Kensington Mayfair Recruitment, based in Loughborough, was ordered to pay over £1,300 in withheld wages and £2,030 in fines at costs at Leicester Magistrates’ Court yesterday. The one-day hearing followed a prosecution by the government’s Employment Agency Standards (EAS) inspectorate.

It also excluded Zoe Helen Evans, director of the recruiter and its owner Isis Management Consultancy, from acting as a director or company secretary of any limited company for a period of one year.

Kensington Mayfair was founded in 2003 and was finally dissolved in February 2011, with a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) confirming to Recruiter that difficulties posed by the company being in administration was “a factor” in prolonging the prosecution.

Employment relations minister Norman Lamb says: “This verdict sends out a clear message that we will continue to take action against rogue recruiters who don’t clean up their act.

“I am pleased to say that most agencies play fairly. It’s only the minority who continue to ignore their responsibilities – but they undermine the system for the rest and we will take action against them.”