Business
Notice of Results & Group Update
Notice of Results & Group Update.
About this update from Staffline Group Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 3919C Staffline Group PLC 17 June 2019 \n\n17 June 2019\n \n \n \nSTAFFLINE GROUP PLC\n(\"Staffline,\" the \"Company\" or the \"Group\")\n \nNotice of Results and Group Update\n \n \nStaffline, the recruitment and training group, provides the following business update.\n \nThe Group intends to announce its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2018 on 27 June 2019.\n \nThe most significant and time consuming area in finalising the financial results has related to the Group's historical compliance with National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 (\"NMW\"). Liabilities in relation to this have been booked as exceptional, non-underlying charges on the basis of their nature, magnitude and the fact that they relate to a period of 6 years from 2013 to 2018. On 12 March 2019 the Group announced that the Board had received the key findings of an independent legal investigation and deemed it prudent to increase a provision in respect of additional costs from £4.4m to £7.9m. Since then, and with the benefit of additional independent specialist advice and following discussions with HMRC, the Group has further reviewed its obligations and liabilities in respect of this matter. As a result of completing this further review, the Board has made a final update to the provision for liabilities associated with historical NMW compliance, increasing this from £7.9m to £15.1m, which includes £0.5m of adviser costs, all of which it expects to be a cash cost in 2019. Additional exceptional costs included in the 2018 result relating to extended audit procedures will be £1.8m, taking total non-recurring exceptional charges for 2018 to £32.6m.\n \nIn recent years, NMW compliance has emerged as a highly complex area which has affected a significant number of UK businesses across industry and retail, in particular. The Group's non-compliance was initially identified by a self-review process as part of HMRC's compliance review. It relates to a limited number of food production facilities and the payment for preparation time, which is generally the time spent donning workwear. In these cases, the Group was following its end customers' operational procedures for clocking in and out. These procedures have now been rectified so that all...