Job agency for deaf people blames collapse on Shaw Trust

12 Oct 2010 News

A Croydon-based recruitment agency that specialises in finding work for deaf people says the Shaw Trust is partly responsible for its liquidation.

Shaw Trust shop

A Croydon-based recruitment agency that specialises in finding work for deaf people says the Shaw Trust is partly responsible for its liquidation.

Dering Employment Services claims it is owed £50,000-£60,000 by the Shaw Trust and the liquidator, Panos Eliades from Panos Eliades Franklin & Co, told Civil Society that chief executive Stephen Dering is to take legal action against the charity to try to recover the money.

But the Shaw Trust says it has paid Dering almost all the money it owed, and that there are just a few invoices still in dispute.

Dering Employment Services was subcontracted by the Shaw Trust to deliver services to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, but claims the Trust did not honour its commitments for monthly service fees and payments by results.  Some non-payments date back over a year, it claims.

Dering told the This Is Croydon local website that said he had spent a lot of time chasing payments, meeting various people from the Trust and asking why it wouldn’t pay. “But they kept using delaying tactics, claiming it was someone else’s responsibility or that they just never received invoices.”

Dering also accused the Trust of “creaming off” those beneficiaries who were easy to find work for, and providing employment services to them itself.

The agency, which was launched in 2006, wound itself up on 22 September, a few weeks after it put its 26 staff on gardening leave as part of a redundancy consultation.  A statement of affairs filed with Companies House showed it owes various creditors £415,155.

Eliades told Civil Society he understood the Shaw Trust disputed the amounts owed and said he was instructing solicitors to issue writs to recover the money.

But the Shaw Trust said it had paid almost all the outstanding invoices. A spokeswoman said: “There are now just a few invoices in dispute, elements of which we have already agreed to pay.

“Dering has not however, reissued the invoices or provided the additional evidence requested to support the claims that would enable us to progress these invoices in totality. As soon as Dering responds to our communication, we can move forwards.”

She said the Trust had had no official confirmation of Dering’s situation or indeed confirmation of any legal proceedings, and added: “We are extremely sympathetic to the plight of Dering and its staff and fully committed to ensuring that any outstanding issues are resolved as quickly as possible.”