Sports Direct offers some staff guaranteed hours

Sports Direct said it will offer directly employed casual retail staff at least 12 guaranteed hours a week, instead of zero-hour contracts.

However almost all staff at the firm's troubled Shirebrook warehouse are agency workers and are not eligible.

In a report commissioned by the firm, it apologised for conditions at Shirebrook, which have been likened to those of a Victorian workhouse.

The company has been under mounting pressure to overhaul the way it is run.

Sports Direct's offer of guaranteed hours will apply to the firm's 18,250 casual staff who work in its stores.

The 4,059 warehouse workers supplied by agency staff, will not qualify for the offer. Just 40 of the firm's warehouse employees are on permanent contracts.

Last year an investigation by the Guardian newspaper revealed that warehouse staff were subject to lengthy security searches which, in some cases, resulted in their pay falling below the legal minimum wage.

And a BBC investigation found ambulances were called out to Sports Direct's complex at Shirebrook, in Derbyshire, 76 times in two years.