TWO Dorset businesses have been “named and shamed” along with national chains such as Wagamama and TGI Friday’s for not paying the national minimum wage.

The government said Days Restaurant at Poole’s Tower Park underpaid 19 workers by a total of £1,001.

Summer Lodge Country House Hotel, Restaurant and Spa, in Evershot, West Dorset, was found to have underpaid 24 workers by £6,168.

Wagamama – which has a restaurant in Bournemouth’s Westover Road – failed to pay £133,212 to 2,630 workers, the most of any of the companies named.

TGI Friday’s – which is at Bournemouth’s BH2 and Poole’s Tower Park – short-changed 2,302 staff by £59,348.

Marriott, whose hotels include the Bournemouth Highcliff Marriott, failed to pay £71,723 to 279 workers.

A total of £1.1 million in back pay was identified for 9,200 workers, with retail, hairdressing and hospitality businesses the most prolific offenders. Employers face penalties of up to 200 per cent of the arrears, capped at £20,000 per worker.

The TUC’s regional secretary in the south west, Nigel Costley, said: “Yet again, we’re seeing many employers, including household names, failing to pay their staff properly. The minimum wage has been around for nearly 20 years – there’s absolutely no excuse for not paying it.”

A statement from Summer Lodge Management Services said: “We have never knowingly underpaid our staff but when HMRC looked in detail at how we charge employees living in our staff accommodation, they worked out that in certain months, the charge for the deposit and for the ongoing rent reduced the wages of some staff who were being paid minimum wage, to just below the minimum wage threshold.

“We believe that as a good employer, especially in a remote area like Evershot, we must provide our staff with safe and decent accommodation. We try to do our best for all the team by making our staff accommodation as comfortable as possible by including meals, Wi-Fi, TV licence, all utilities, cleaning services, etc. We also try to charge our staff as little as possible for it.

“HMRC decided that by taking the deposits and rent from salaries before they were paid to the staff, we were not applying the rules correctly.”

The hotel had repaid every current and former employee and changed the way it organised staff accommodation.

TGI Friday’s said its fine related to reimbursing staff for a shoe allowance. “This is a historic payment which was paid last year, and we have since reimbursed team members for the purchase of their black uniform shoe,” it said.

A Marriott spokesman said: “When an error was identified by a routine HMRC audit in 2015, we cooperated fully with HMRC and promptly reimbursed all those affected.

“We apologise to all our associates impacted by this error and have taken steps to ensure it cannot happen again.”

Wagamama said it had misunderstood rules on uniforms.

“In the past we didn’t realise that asking our front of house staff to wear casual black jeans or skirts, with their Wagamama branded top, was considered as asking them to buy a form of uniform and so we should have paid them for it,” it said.

“We have gladly made payments to current and previous employees who missed out dating back from 2016 to 2013.” Days Restaurant had not commented at the time of going to press.