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LB170 Communication skills for business and management Article 1: Joanna Lumley 'shocked' at claims disabled workers unpaid By Ben King, BBC News Published 16 January 2021 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55664266 (Word count: 901)

isabled workers at one of the UK's oldest charitable enterprises, Clarity, have allegedly been denied 200,000 in wages by the new owner. The company produces toiletries and beauty products under the Clarity, Beco and Soap Co brands. Actress Joanna Lumley and Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP have spoken out strongly over the claims. Nicholas Marks, who bought the company last year, says all currently employed staff have been paid. Community, the union which represents Clarity's workers, claims that a number of disabled employees at the firm have not been paid wages and furlough payments.

PHILIP HAYNES AND TBWA Image: Stephen Steppens says he has received no money since September Stephen Steppens, 60, has been blind since birth, and has worked at Clarity since 1985. He is officially on furlough until his redundancy is completed at the end of January. He says he has received no money since September and has been relying on his savings to get by. "I loved it," he says of working there. Losing the job, and the fight over the organisation's future, have taken a toll on his mental health, he says. "I want to see justice done, not just for me, but also for my friends who are visiting food banks." A number of employees have brought successful employment tribunal claims for unauthorised deduction of wages against Clarity, including Mr Steppens. Clarity was ordered to pay him 706. A number of other employment tribunal claims are ongoing, according to Community. Joanna Lumley, who had been a supporter of Clarity, called it "the best of the best" and said she was "shocked" to learn of the allegations over treatment of workers. "Justice must be done as soon as possible," she told BBC News. Clarity was founded in 1854 by a wealthy blind woman, Elizabeth Gilbert, as the Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind, to provide opportunities for workers whom other employers overlooked because of their disabilities. Before the takeover, three-quarters of its staff were disabled people.

Image: A factory in London run by General Welfare of the Blind, about 1901 Its supporters and patrons in the past have included Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens and Queen Victoria. Clarity went into administration last year, as it was losing money and unable to fund the hole in its pension scheme, according to a spokesman for the administrators, FRP. In January, it was bought by Nicholas Marks. Sir Iain Duncan Smith, whose London constituency is home to Clarity's headquarters, raised the issue in the House of Commons on 12 January. "Staff have failed to receive national insurance contributions, with many failing to receive their wages or support while undertaking childcare," he told MPs. "The total amount that these decent but very vulnerable people have failed to receive is now around 200,000. They cannot claim benefits because they are essentially employed." Community estimates that about 60 former employees of Clarity are still awaiting payment of their wages and furlough payments, most of them disabled workers. A spokesman for Nicholas Marks said that Sir Iain's remarks were "highly inaccurate" and the company "does not recognise" the 200,000 figure. "The grievances echoed by Sir Iain Duncan Smith simply reflect disgruntled ex-employees. All employees currently working have been paid in full up-to-date and the company is dealing with redundancies and gross misconduct of former employees," he said. Community says it is not aware of any staff who have been dismissed for gross misconduct. The spokesman for Mr Marks said that Mr Marks had "saved this historic company from permanent failure". However, other bids for Clarity were made, including one from the well-known social entrepreneur, Cemal Ezel, who runs the Change Please

coffee business, which creates opportunities for homeless people. He is still interested in buying the brands, he told BBC News.

Image: Cemal Ezel, founder of Change Please Though Mr Ezel's final bid was slightly higher, the administrators' report says they chose to sell to Mr Marks because he was in a better position to complete the deal by 31 January. Mr Marks's spokesman said that he had to make "some sensible commercial decisions to place it on to a proper business footing and regrettably some staff had to be let go". On Wednesday, Clarity's website was still running the Certified Social Enterprise mark, denoting an organisation devoted to "creating positive social change". The spokesman said Clarity Products was not a social enterprise and was not "purporting to clients" that it was, though it retained the "social enterprise ethos through the continued employment of fully paid disabled staff". Wrongly using the logo for nearly a year was "simply an oversight", and it is being removed. On Thursday morning, the website was unavailable - the company spokesman said he was not aware why. In a response to Sir Iain's query, Treasury Minister Jesse Norman wrote that he had "specifically asked HMRC to note the circumstances you describe, and to consider whether and how there may be a case for early intervention". Another company owned by Mr Marks, a Preston-based caravan maker called Lunar Automotive, was reported to HMRC by the local MP, Sir Mark Hendrick, for allegedly refusing to pay wages and pension contributions for its workers. This company was also bought out of an administration run by FRP. Mr Marks's spokesman was not able to comment in detail on the Lunar Automotive case, but said the company had not heard back from HMRC.

LB170 Communication skills for business and management Article 2: Exclusive: Waitrose suspends orders from troubled former social enterprise Clarity Anna Patton, 21 January 2021 https://www.pioneerspost.com/news-views/20210121/exclusive-waitrose-suspends-orders[1]troubled-former-social-enterprise[1]clarity#:~:text=Supermarket%20chain%20Waitrose%20has%20suspended,of%20the%20Lo ndon[1]based%20company.&text=We%20are%20investigating%20the%20status,take%20appropria te%20action%20as%20needed.%E2%80%9D (Article below reduced to Word count: 1021) Supermarket chain Waitrose suspends orders from former social enterprise Clarity and launches investigation into the status of the London-based company. The upmarket, employee-owned grocer - whose brand values include "doing the right thing", and which was named 'supermarket of the year' in October - has decided to suspend orders from Clarity Products Ltd., alongside other retailers. Its statement said: "We are investigating the status of the company and its branding and will take appropriate action as needed." The statement came after Pioneers Post got in touch to ask why it was still describing the company behind BECo, a Clarity brand, as "one of the UK's foremost social enterprises" on the Waitrose website. Meanwhile, one of the UK's top social entrepreneurs has called for the bodies overseeing social enterprise branding and accreditation to be given more "teeth" - following his failed bid to rescue Clarity from collapse last year. Cemal Ezel, founder and CEO of the award-winning coffee company Change Please, tried to buy Clarity & Co. when it went into administration last year, but lost out to another buyer. Ezel said there should be tougher protections around the social enterprise logos that many companies - including Clarity - had used on their marketing materials. Leaving logos or accreditations unprotected presented a "big risk" to the wider social enterprise sector, and Ezel suggested that the organisations issuing them be given more authority to crack down on any wrongful use. The risk is especially high now, with the Covid-19 pandemic likely to push more social businesses into financial trouble. Ezel is currently in talks with two other companies - one of them a social enterprise - that may soon face liquidation. Clarity & Co., an east London charity and social enterprise founded in 1854 to provide employment to disabled people, was bought out of administration in February 2020. At the time of its purchase it had 85 employees, around 80% of whom were disabled or had long-term health conditions. In the past month 27 employees won employment tribunal cases against Clarity Products Ltd. for unauthorised deductions of wages - totalling 35,000 between them

Clarity's owner, Marks is reported to have said that all currently employed staff have been paid. A Clarity spokesperson stated: "When Clarity was bought out of administration last year there were huge financial and operational problems in place that had to be resolved. Not only did we have to reverse the failing business model that existed - which had previously suffered annual losses of more than 1m - we also had to cope with trading in a pandemic and during the lockdowns. These combined factors and inherited problems unfortunately led to some administrative delays which have now all been resolved or are being dealt with. After a lot of hard work, for the first time in many years, Clarity is now creating financially sustainable work and offering proper job security to those with disabilities as the company becomes a commercially viable business." It is not clear how many staff Clarity currently employs. In recent years Clarity had secured deals with major government buyers, and its consumer brands, The Soap Co. and BECo, were stocked by large retailers. It was frequently cited as a success story for its ability to put its social mission first while competing with commercial brands. A statement from the administrators at the time of the buyout - in which the former charity was acquired by a company specially set up for the purpose, Clarity Products Ltd. - said that the new company would "continue to operate as a social enterprise". The deal ensured all 85 jobs were saved. However, by March 2020 more than 30 staff had not been paid their last month's salary. The company said this was due to "short-term cash flow problems" but an employee at the time said that the trust had "gone from the company" and that the "caring ethos" seemed "to have gone forever". A Clarity spokesperson told Pioneers Post this week: "Clarity's central ethos of employing, training and supporting those with disabilities within the workplace remains at the heart of our business and these roles continue to make up more than 70% of the workforce. Our long-term aim is to create more of these jobs as we look to grow in the future." Social Enterprise UK formally terminated Clarity's membership on 20 November 2020, said Andrew O'Brien, SEUK's director of external affairs, at which point it "made clear" to the company that they should no longer be displaying the 'Certified Social Enterprise' logo. "We made absolutely clear that they had to make some legal changes, and we gave different options," he said. "We talked to them about other models that have been developed by other social enterprises that might be relevant to them." Options suggested included creating a subsidiary with an independent board, or incorporating a social mission into the main company. While Clarity had put forward a proposal in August to retain its social enterprise status, according to O'Brien, its suggestions did not satisfy SEUK's requirements - and by November, SEUK had decided to terminate discussions. O'Brien said the Clarity spokeman's comment about retaining a social enterprise "ethos" was "a concern, because you either are a social enterprise or you're not, you can't claim to have the ethos of the social enterprise without being one. If there had been a refusal or if Clarity had sought to try to maintain 'certified social enterprise' on its website, we would have challenged that very robustly... But we do appreciate with Covid and everything going on, sometimes these things do take time

Ezel said that in future instances, there needed to be more understanding that the social enterprise brand was "not just a marketing tactic" to help firms sell more products. "Trainees and beneficiaries and people that we're supporting come first, and the commercial part underpins them." SEUK has emphasised its concerns about the allegations of unpaid wages and said it hoped the situation would be resolved quickly. "It is sad to lose one of the UK's longest standing social enterprises, which, over the last 160 years, has provided valuable employment and training for vulnerable and disadvantaged workers."