Hands off staff tips, UK government tells restaurants

RESTAURANTS in Britain could be stopped from adding a ‘discretionary’ service charge to bills under government plans to remind consumers that they do not have to tip when eating out, the Daily Telegraph reports. 

Sajid Javid, the Business Secretary, has launched a consultation on tipping amid concerns that restaurants are confusing customers by not being transparent about the charges and who actually gets the tips left by diners.

One option under consideration is to prevent restaurants ‘from suggesting any specific discretionary payments’, to make it an ‘opt-in decision’ for customers. Many restaurants add a 10 or 15 percent service charge to their bills. Ministers are concerned that this often leads to double tipping because customers do not notice that they have already paid a service charge before leaving cash for their waiter.

Card machines also often ask customers if they would like to leave an extra tip even if a service charge has been added to the bill.

Under the proposals in the consultation, restaurants could be forced to make it clear that customers do not have to pay the discretionary service charge. But one plan being considered is abolishing the service charge entirely.

Mr Javid’s consultation says: ‘The alternative would be to prevent businesses from suggesting any specific discretionary payments for service, e.g. 5, 10, 15 percent. In other words, there would be no mention on the consumer’s bill of a suggested specific amount for a discretionary payment for service, other than that a discretionary service has not been added.

‘The consumer may still decide to leave a discretionary payment for service without any prompt of a specific amount from the employer. Under this option, discretionary payments for service would become an opt-indecision for a better informed consumer, who would hold complete discretion towards making any such payment.’

As part of the government’s plans, restaurants would be forced by law to give tips paid by customers to their staff. The government will force restaurants to say on bills exactly where tips go following concerns that employers were keeping the money themselves.

Research has found that one-in-five restaurants did not pass tips to their staff.

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