Revenue and Customs: Recruitment

(asked on 17th July 2018) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the staffing complement is of HMRC's National Minimum Wage Compliance Unit; and how many of those staff posts were unfilled as of 17 July 2018.


Answered by
Mel Stride Portrait
Mel Stride
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
This question was answered on 25th July 2018

The government is determined that everyone who is entitled to the National Minimum and Living Wage (NMW) receives it. Anyone who feels they have been underpaid NMW should contact the Acas helpline on 0300 123 1100 or via the online complaints form at gov.uk.

At the end of the 2017/18 financial year there were 412 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in NMW compliance teams, up from 352 the previous year. Staffing levels fluctuate throughout the year. HMRC is currently staffed to 83% of planned NMW recruitment, and continues an extensive recruitment process as part of HMRC’s ongoing growth in developing enforcement capability.

Other staff across HMRC also contribute to enforcing the NMW, including lawyers, technical advisers and those specialising in criminal investigations. These staff are not included in these numbers.

HMRC does not hold data in the format required to answer the question on average time to fill vacancies within NMW.

The Government has more than trebled annual funding of minimum wage enforcement since 2014, providing a total budget of £26.3m in 2018/19. The additional investment has enabled a significant expansion of resources dedicated to enforcing the minimum wage.

Last year HMRC identified over £15.6m of NMW arrears for over 200,000 workers, which is the largest amount of arrears found for workers in any single year since the NMW was introduced.

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