HR Magazine – Employer bars street cleaner from taking crowdfunded holiday

More than 200 people in the London borough of Bromley fundraised £3,000 as a sign of appreciation for their street cleaner Paul Spiers, who has reportedly worked in the borough for seven years.

However, Spiers’ employer, waste management company Veolia, prevented him from accepting the money. A spokesperson said that the company’s contract with Bromley Council “does not permit our staff to accept any money or incentives outside agreed pay structures”.

Jo Moseley, employment law associate at Irwin Mitchell, explained that employers have a legal obligation to prevent employees accepting bribes.

She told HR magazine: “Many employers have policies in place which limit or prevent staff from receiving gifts or payments from people outside their organisation, to prevent conflict of interests arising.

“The Bribery Act 2010 modernised the UK’s anti-corruption legislation and applies to both the public and private sectors.

“It includes offences such as bribing another person, soliciting or accepting a bribe, and failing to prevent bribery. Public authorities must have adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery, and most will have guidelines regarding the hospitality that their employees may legitimately accept.”

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Local MPs joined the campaign for Veolia to allow Spiers to accept the holiday, and the incident was shared across social media in a bid to convince his employer to change its mind.

In response, Veolia suggested that it would offer Spiers an internal financial reward that matched the amount of money raised by the community, the Evening Standard reported on Monday (12 August). The new fund is to be donated to a charity of Spiers’ choice.

According to MailOnline (13 August) Spiers, who is known in the local area for his love of Elvis, has since won an “extremely specific” competition run by package holiday company OnTheBeach. The terms of the competition stated that the winner “must love Elvis, be between the ages of 62 and 64, have a surname of Spiers, be a street cleaner in Beckenham and be loved by your local community”. 

A Veolia representative told MailOnline the business did not have any objection to Spiers accepting the prize.

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Employers’ bribery policy must clearly denote what is classed as bribery, Jeya Thiruchelvam, content manager in employment law and compliance at HR insights provider Brightmine, told HR magazine.

“The responsibility of deciding what is classed as a bribe and what is not falls to senior leadership and HR,” she said.

“The main considerations teams must make during this process are the motive of the party offering the gift – for example, whether it is being offered with the intention of influencing the impartiality of the receiver in relation to the conduct of business – and whether the nature of the gift is reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances.

“Naturally, the stakes are much higher in some occupations than others, but the main principle remains the same: whether the acceptance of such a gift would constitute improper performance.”