Month: April 2019

The minimum contributions your organisation must pay into your staff workplace pension plans increased on 6^th April.  You need to include the new pension rates when you process your first payroll after 6^th April.

Have you informed your employees of the increase, as the employee as well as the employer needs to increase their contribution? The total payments must now be no les than 8% of qualifying earnings.  The employer has to pay a minimum of 3% and the employee pays the rest.

A recent survey by our professional body, CIPP found that 11% of the respondents have not informed their employees of this increase. Surely, this is going to cause these organisations a lot of extra work when their employees see the increase on their payslip and query this with their payroll department, and possibly even opt out of their pension.

Most of the respondents (46%) said they had communicated the increase via personal letter. There are letter templates <link to pdf https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/-/media/thepensionsregulator/files/import/pdf/minimum-pension-contribution-increases-letter-phasing.ashx?la=en&hash=2DECCE11E5664FD9689C7B5CE17F977F1025355F&utm_source=256Phasing2019_Experian_HR_Internal&utm_medium=email> available from The Pension Regulator, if you have not already informed your employees.  You should by now have also made sure your payroll team and software providers have got your systems ready for when you run your first payroll after 6^th April.

If you are a All Payrolls client, then you don’t need to worry. We will have already planned for this increase with you.  If you are not already a All Payrolls client, and you would like to learn more about our outsourced payroll management solutions, please get in touch.  We are based in Birmingham, with clients all over the UK.

Question: When it comes to claims regarding equal pay, can women working in a supermarket compare themselves with men working in warehouses and distribution centres?

The Court of Appeal said yes, they can, when it upheld an appeal in the case of Asda Stores Ltd vs Brierley. The crux of the matter was whether or not the women and the men were employed under “common terms”.

The Court held that the claimants (women working at Asda supermarkets) would be entitled to draw the comparison under European law because there was a “single source” for their and their comparators’ (men working in warehouses) terms.

The implications for all employers are that the Court of Appeal explains that the test for “common terms” is purely hypothetical and considers it unnecessary for claimants to present evidence about the actual terms on which they are their comparators are employed. This means that employers will find it very difficult to not pay workers equally even when working on different sites under different employment regimes.

The question employers will now need to answer is not how different the terms are at different sites, but how different would the terms be, if workers from one site were transplanted to do their own jobs at another site?

We cannot stress enough how this ruling could affect employers, especially large employers. We provide our services to a very wide range of employers from micro employers to large public sector bodies.  For help and advice on any matter related to employment and outsourced payroll services talk to our Birmingham based team.

This new code does not impose any legal duties on employers, but the new Code may be used as evidence in legal proceedings. Also, Courts and Employment Tribunals must take account of any part of the Code which may be relevant, and the Home Office will also use this Code when administering illegal working.

So as an employer you really need to know what’s in the Code and importantly there is some good news. In that it may provide a way for you to establish a statutory excuse against liability for an illegal working civil penalty.  The way you do this is by conducting an online right to work check using the Home Office Online Right To Work Checking Service

As an employer you have a responsibility to prevent illegal working in the UK by ensuring your employees have the right to work here. If you don’t the Secretary of State can serve an employer with a notice requiring the payment of a penalty where they employ a person who in a nutshell is; subject to immigration control, and aged over 16, and not allowed to carry out the work because they have not been granted leave to enter or remain, or because their leave to enter or remain is invalid, has ceased to have effect or is subject to a condition preventing them from accepting the employment.

We are an expert outsourced payroll provider based in Birmingham. However, our service extends beyond simple payroll processing.  If you are in any doubt about any aspect of employing people give us a call, we will be happy to help or point you in the right direction. Let’s start here with a link to the penalties for employing an illegal worker.