An employment tribunal has ordered a charity to almost £13,000 to the former boss of its trading subsidiary.
A judge found that Next Steps Development, which helps people with learning disabilities and mental health difficulties, owed Sarah Poyser money to cover unauthorised deductions from her wages and outstanding holiday pay.
Poyser was made director of Next Steps @ Barnstaple, a community interest company set up to act as the charity’s trading subsidiary, in early 2021. She was dismissed with immediate effect at the end of February 2022, the judgement says.
Poyser argued that the charity owed her a total of five months’ wages, saying she took the job in March 2021 on the understanding that her salary had initially been “deferred” while funding was obtained.
The charity said that Poyser was told the role “could not be a paid position immediately” and that wages would only be available “when the financial position was better”, documents show.
The judge described the charity’s position as “inherently implausible” given that it agreed to provide Poyser with a pay slip for March 2021. It is not likely Next Steps Development would have done this if Poyser “was not in a paid position at that stage”, the judgement says.
He also criticised the “evidential vacuum” when the charity was asked to provide records showing when Poyser took annual leave.
The documents also show that Poyser loaned money to the CIC in April 2021 to help it pay wages for other staff at a time of “cash flow difficulties”.
The judge concluded that Next Steps Development owed Poynter just under £12,000 for the months at the beginning and end of her employment as well as £850 to cover untaken holiday leave.
Next Steps Development raised £501,000 and spent £493,000 in the year to the end of April 2021, according to its most recent accounts, but its liabilities were greater than its assets at the end of that year. The organisation is a week late filing its 2021/22 accounts with the Charity Commission.
The charity did not respond to an email requesting comment. Its telephone line does not work and its website appears to be down.
The registrar of companies has cancelled plans to dissolve the CIC, according to Companies House records.