Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise

Pay & benefitsPayroll

Pay confusion biggest cause of UK tribunal complaints

by Personnel Today 29 Jun 2009
by Personnel Today 29 Jun 2009

A study by one of the UK’s leading employment law firms,ELAS, has discovered that almost 100,000 tribunals a year are prompted by complaints about unauthorised deductions from pay packets and demands for wage equality.

Employment Law Advisory Services (ELAS) found that 1,000 tribunals result from employees not even being given a regular payslip by their bosses.

ELAS’ spokeswoman Annabel Dawkins says firms are now demanding specialist help to avoid getting into trouble because of confusion about what they describe as a “blizzard” of wage regulations.

“Businesses sometimes get overwhelmed by the sheer complexity of handling workers’ pay. Our research showed that small and medium-sized firms in particular can get phased by the laws and regulations impacting on pay and how they apply to their workforce.

“Faced with potentially disastrous consequences of getting an employee’s pay even slightly wrong, SMEs we spoke to said they needed more specialist help to cope.”

ELAS provides varied support on a range of employment issues such as payroll support to businesses ranging from bakers to major law firms and plumbers to Premier League football clubs.

It found that the most recent figures available show that grievances about unauthorised deductions, equal or National Minimum wages and the lack of pay slips together accounted for 98,806 employment tribunals in the UK in the year to 31st March 2008.

That total is more than twice the number of people claiming unfair dismissal, nearly four times the number of sex discrimination cases and almost 25 times the volume of complaints about race discrimination.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

The proportion of wage disputes was swollen by a ten-fold rise in equal pay claims over the last five years.

ELAS’ research included a survey of 2,000 businesses across Britain with 73.6% of respondents declaring that payroll services would be the workplace function they would most like to outsource because of the difficulties it caused and the time it took up.

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

previous post
Sir Ken Robinson: the creative thinker
next post
Talent management is not just an HR task

You may also like

Two in three NHS staff say pay is...

9 Sep 2025

Pay awards feeling tightest squeeze since December 2021

8 Sep 2025

Director with cancer treated unfairly over pay, rules...

5 Sep 2025

Revolut employees to receive share sale payout

2 Sep 2025

City law firm freezes junior lawyers’ pay to...

28 Aug 2025

FCA issues clarity on workplace savings schemes to...

27 Aug 2025

Employee Benefits Live 2025 conference programme unveiled

21 Aug 2025

Eurostar’s Georgie Willis a keynote speaker at Employee...

19 Aug 2025

Lidl to increase entry-level hourly pay for 35,000...

15 Aug 2025

EU pay transparency rules driving ‘cultural pay shift’...

7 Aug 2025

  • Workplace health benefits need to be simplified SPONSORED | Long-term sickness...Read more
  • Work smart – stay well: Avoid unnecessary pain with centred ergonomics SPONSORED | If you often notice...Read more
  • Elevate your L&D strategy at the World of Learning 2025 SPONSORED | This October...Read more
  • How to employ a global workforce from the UK (webinar) WEBINAR | With an unpredictable...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits Live
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Recruitment & retention
    • Wellbeing
    • Occupational Health
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise