Busy Bees nursery chain underpaid more than 9,000 workers

A nursery chain is one of hundreds of businesses to be criticised for failing to pay money due to workers through the national minimum wage. The Department for Business and Trade has produced a list of the companies that owed money to their staff and Busy Bees Nurseries, based in Burntwood, Staffordshire, is top for the number of staff owed and fourth for the total owed. According to the league table, which covers the calendar years 2023 and 2024, it failed to pay £485,374.05 to 9,056 workers. Busy Bees Nurseries said the underpayment was the result of "inadvertent errors", which it had corrected, and that it had apologised to affected staff at the time. The company said it was "fully committed to making sure all our colleagues receive fair pay that is fully compliant with regulatory guidance". It also said as soon as the errors were spotted it worked with HMRC to resolve them and that it had since continued to strengthen its processes. The government said employers had been told to repay more than £7.3m in wages owed to workers and 389 had been issued with fines worth a total of £12.6m. The money owed by Busy Bees accounted for one sixth of the total of underpaid workers affected.