Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Health Service Employee

A Medical Services Company

Representatives

Ted Kenny SIPTU Health Division

A HR Manager

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 13 of the Industrial Relations Act, 1969

CA-00028190-001

06/05/2019

The Complainant maintained that due to delays in getting her subsistence and expense payments and time sheets approved that she suffered considerable delay in receiving the proper payments due and this caused considerable stress in her personal financial circumstances and is seeking compensation for the delays.

The claim relates to a period between 2015 and 2017.

The Complainant continually suffered a delay in getting paid her expenses, subsistence and other allowances.

This caused the Complainant considerable stress in her financial planning and repayments of loans and mortgage and she suffered penalties as a result.

Timesheets were changes by Management and did not inform the Complainant. There was delays in processing her claim forms at local management level and Management gave an undertaking to fix the issues.

The Respondent refuted any wrongdoing pursuant to the Industrial Relations Acts.

The Complainant is one of approximately 16 staff in their locations and paid from central payroll.

The Respondent understood at other WRC processes in the past, the Complainant had spoken to Management about pay returns, which resulted in local discussions, which we assume had addressed matters.

The substance behind the complaint to the WRC was not understood by management, who are not aware of any outstanding payments due to the Complainant, which we understand relate to pre-2018.

The Respondent understand the claims related to premia, additional payments etc and noted this point to make it clear that basic pay was always paid and not subject to any deductions etc. and occurred without fail. Additional payments, i.e. premia, overtime, subsistence etc. are subject to pay returns and approvals to check correctness, prior to payments occurring. In general, and specifically for this complaint, this is required to ensure compliance with national Financial Regulations on payroll.

The Respondents checks on payroll requires validation and approvals to be in place before payments can be processed.

Previously there was a practise of submitting separate claims for subsistence and due to the requirement to subject such payments to additional checks, to ensure compliance with circulars, in practise this led to some delays for all staffs, not just the Complainant. In addition, it was a regular occurrence that subsistence payments are held to ensure compliance with relevant circulars due to high numbers of non-compliant claims in the Respondent organisation.

The Respondent stated they were not aware of an actual dispute or wrong doing, in particular the parties being owed money from an outstanding claim. We are aware that there were past discussions regarding timesheets, which we assume were addresses at that time.  

While events seem to have moved on, especially as the complaints appear to be pre-2018, there has been a wholesale change of managers in the operational region making verification of issues or claims difficult.

While it was established at the Hearing that no basic pay was delayed in the timeframe included in the claim, the Complainant appeared to have suffered some considerable delays in receiving payments, which were mostly paid after some considerable time. This caused them considerable upset and unnecessary anxiety. I appreciate the difficulty the Respondent had to evaluate these issues due to the lack of clarity of the claims and   the significant changes in local management and the considerable time it would involve trying to verify every detail of the claim. The Complainant stated the amount involved was 1,000 Euros.

I have considered the background to this claim and find the claim well founded and recommend that the Respondent pays the Complainant a gross sum of 1,000 Euros to resolve all outstanding issues for that period. This is on a red circled recommendation basis and is not to be used as a basis for any future claim by the parties or Representatives. However, to be clear, nothing in this Recommendation prevents Management in the future from appropriately analysing and validating any claim for payment, but it should be done openly and quickly as possible.

Delay