Attachment of earnings

[Twonk]

Hi all

I have been sent by HMRC an attachment of earnings for a staff member, interestingly from a court in Dorset (no where near us) He claims never to have been or lived there but after initially claiming no knowledge of any incident has now said after speaking to the court it was to do with a tv license issue that followed him from the north of England.

Does any of this ring true? Why Dorset majestrates court if the courts have your address as Hampshire (and there are many more local courts) and is £380 really appropriate for a decades worth of tv license evasion?!? Also will the courts give this type of information out over the phone?

I have concerns over what this employee may have done, can I crb check him?

[didds]

I might have missed a nuance somewhere, but if this is all for TV license evasion i doubt its really an issue for you as an employer to be concerned with unless your business is closely aligned with TVL maybe, or there was a specific question at application that would have necessitated a lie (and even then its a very specific one).

I would imagine the majority of your employees break the law almost every day in their non work life... speeding in a vehicle, using a mobile phone when driving, expired MOTs, smoking dope etc etc. I also doubt you would have an issue generally for such illegalities.

The above isn't intended as a dig at you You may be being overly worried about soemthing that isn;t really worth worrying about - that's what I mean.

cheers

didds

[DrBunsenHoneydew]

AEOs tend to be used when there has been failure to pay the sequence of instalments on a debt order/child maintenance etc. The employer can take a £1 fee for each disbursal.
So the original TV Licence debt may have been much larger and he has stopped paying the monthly fine dues part-way through.

[chas49]

I have concerns over what this employee may have done, can I crb check him?

Depends on what the job is and what your contract says. If it's a regulated activity, you can check as part of recruitment (https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... y_v8.1.pdf)

If your contract requires staff to disclose criminal convictions on an ongoing basis, you might be able to ask him but I don't think you can just do a check anyway. If it is a regulated activity, and he's signed up to DBS Online, you could ask him to provide an up to date check.

If he refuses, or if it disclosed something criminal but not serious, what are you going to do? Does your contract allow you to dismiss?

[melonfool]

Chas is correct:

1) you can only 'CRB' someone if the role is within the named roles that allow it, an employer does not have a general right to know everything about their employee...
2) ...and you can only do this if your contract states it....
3) .....unless your contract has clause about unspent convictions, in which case he *may* have breached the contract by not telling you....
4) if it does not, then even if you find out, you can't do anything with the information (if he has under 2 years service this may not be an issue of course)
5) re the court location - court hearings are where the prosecutor submits, not where the respondent is, no idea where HMRC/TVLA are though, but if you get a speeding fine in Carlisle and live in London you have to go to Carlisle to have it heard, same for employers - employee based in Manchester brings a claim against employer whose HO is London, employer has to go to Mancs for the hearing (and attempts by the employer to have the case moved are rarely successful) - so where the 'case' was heard gives you very little information
6) I thought criminal convictions were a matter of public record, so you should be able to phone the court and ask what it is for?

I suspect it is, as he says, unpaid TV licence. He may have forgotten it, or he may have been skint, or he may be a hardened criminal. Whether any of this has any bearing on his employment is a different issue.

You could ask him, and he might agree, to do an online 'Disclosure Scotland' (stupid name) which is c£20, he does it himself then shows you the certificate, and it shows only 'live' convictions. But you cannot do it 'on' him, he has to do it (CRB cannot be done by the employer without employee involvement either, btw). He does not have to agree but it depends what the contract says.

https://www.mygov.scot/basic-disclosure ... isclosure/

What you can do with any information that appears on it depends on 1, 2 and 3 above.

Further info - the whole 'Disclosure Scotland' system is being revamped and changed in the near future and being absorbed into CRB/DBS who currently do not provide this very basic level of disclosure.

Mel