Former Jamie Oliver restaurant staff awarded nearly £500,000 in compensation

Former workers at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant businesses have been awarded more than £471,000 in compensation by the Insolvency Service.

Following an FOI request by The Mirror, seen by The Caterer, recent tribunal judgements relating to Oliver's various failed businesses have resulted in thousands of pounds paid out by the Redundancy Payments Service under section 189 of the Trade Union & Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992.

If an employee’s former employer is insolvent, the Insolvency Service will pay a Protective Award through the Redundancy Payment Service, which is awarded by an employment tribunal when an employer did not consult with their employees before they were made redundant. Employers are required by law to consult with staff for at least 30 days where 20 or more employees are likely to be made redundant.

76 employees from Jamie’s Italian sites in Glasgow and Edinburgh were awarded eight weeks' pay last year. And although operated separately by the Cornwall Food Foundation, 70 former employees of Fifteen Cornwall were also awarded more than £200,000 last year.

The claims were not against the Jamie Oliver Group but the restaurant arms of Oliver’s business which, once in administration, would have been dealt with by administrator KPMG.

All members of staff are understood to have been paid up until the day the business fell into administration in May 2019.

Following the high-profile collapse of the chef's restaurant empire, his business now includes his TV, book and licensing arms as well as a cookery school in London. Jamie Oliver Holdings reported pre-tax profits of £4.1m with a turnover of £30m in 2019.

The administration saw the closure of 22 restaurants and around 1,000 jobs were lost across the Jamie's Italian, Barbecoa and Fifteen London brands.

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