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The General Data Protection Regulation came into force in May 2018. The Information Commissioners’ Office (ICO) has published a report ‘GDPR one year on’ giving an overview of the ICO’s experience and sharing information and insights. Importantly for small businesses the report says what the ICO is doing to help SME’s to comply with these new legal responsibilities.

The GDPR was brought in across the EU to uphold the information rights of the public and to give them confidence about how personal information on them is held and used. This gave the public greater awareness of their individual rights, and as you can imagine, has led to a big increase in the number of reported data breaches, data concerns received and a doubling of Subject Access Requests (SAR). A SAR is made by an individual to ask for a copy of the personal data an organisation or business holds about them and an explanation of what their personal data is being used for.

For businesses the ICO will continue to update its guidance, but it will also be creating four statutory codes. They will be on Data Sharing, Direct Marketing, Age-Appropriate Design, Data Protection and Journalism. The first code will be on Data Sharing and it is expected to go before Parliament Autumn 2019.

Another way the ICO is helping SMEs in a practical way is by coming out and doing a one-day Advisory Visit. The Advisory Visit covers advice to organisations on how to improve data protection practice. Following the visit, the ICO will send a short follow up report. This costs nothing and the report summarises what you need to do next. Follow this link and scroll down to Advisory Visits https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/audits/

And finally, here is a brief overview of some of the stats the ICO shared in their ‘GDPR one year on’ report.

14,000 personal data breach reports from 25 May 2019 to 1 May 2019. In the year from 1^st April 2017 the number was 3,000.  Only 0.5% of these led to either an improvement plan or civil monetary penalty.

Concerns raised by the public to the ICO. From 25 May 2019 to 1 May 2019 over 41,000 which is almost double the figure for 2017/2018 which was around 21,000.

Complaints about Subject Access Requests continue to be the most frequent kind of complaint accounting for 38% of all complaints the ICO received. However, this compares to 39% before GDPR. The ICO says that all complaints have risen proportionately in line with the overall increased number of complaints.

Here at All Payrolls we do so much more for our clients than simply providing outsourced payroll services. To find out more about our experience and what we offer to our clients as trusted professional business partners take a look around our website or contact our All Payrolls head office in Birmingham.

An eye-watering £40 million in unpaid taxes is going to be collected by HMRC from high earning people using a tax avoidance scheme.

The scheme promoter is Hyrax Resourcing Ltd. HMRC are now demanding they disclose the details of the scheme along with the names and addresses of 1,180 people who used the scheme. The scheme users were paid National Minimum Wage, and the remainder of their earnings was made up in the form of loans which were transferred to an offshore trust.

This is even more distasteful when you think that the National Minimum Wage, which has recently celebrated its 20^th anniversary, having been introduced in 1999, was set up to improve the earnings of the lowest paid members of our society.  The legal case that HMRC has won will allow them to collect unpaid taxes of over £40m and if the scheme promoter fails to comply with the ruling to provide the required information, they will face a penalty of almost £6 million and £5,000 per day.

At All Payrolls we ensure that we calculate the correct amount of income tax and national insurance for our client’s employees, and advise the employer what they need to pay to the authorities. As an independent third party we help your management team with their governance responsibilities.  We are ideally positioned to see that the rules on tax, national insurance and benefits are applied correctly. This gives owners and directors peace of mind when they outsource their payroll processing and management to us.  Please contact our Birmingham based head office team to discuss your requirements.

HMRC has issued an alert about a new phone scam. People are being called and threatened with court action.  The scammers are also saying a summons for arrest has been issued for tax avoidance and non-payment of tax.  As you can imagine this is causing a great deal of alarm for the people receiving these calls.

You can help HMRC by reporting any such incident to Action Fraud via their website, or by calling them on 0300 123 2040.

If you think a communication from HMRC is suspicious they ask that you report this to their phishing team (phishing@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk).

• Forward text messages to 60599 (you will be charged at your normal network rate)
• Emails, send to the email address above
• Phone call, send caller’s phone number, date of the call and brief description of the call, to the email address above

HMRC want to remind everyone that they will never send a text, email or phone you telling you about a tax rebate or penalty or ask for your personal payment information.

Let’s all stay vigilant and if we all report such incidents, we can help HMRC to combat the scammers.

For any other aspect of bona fide tax communication from HMRC if it’s to do with payroll and making sure you are being correct and diligent in your handling of your employees’ tax then we can help. Our experts are based in Birmingham but we work with clients all over the UK. We are used to dealing with wages and salaries and benefits in relation to payroll processing, which is our core competency, but our service extends well beyond this. Get in touch with our expert team if we can be of assistance.

For the lowest paid the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in April 1999 has had a major impact for good. Taking into account the NMW and the National Living Wage, (introduced in 2016), since 1999 the lowest paid people working in the UK have seen their hourly pay grow faster than all other workers.

This has also had an upwards ripple effect in businesses as managers and supervisors, who earn just above the NMW, have seen their wages increase in order to keep the differential pay gap between them and other workers.

The Low Pay Commission recognise that the NMW has had a transformative effect on the UK’s labour market. In the 1980s and 1990s and before this, the earnings of the lowest paid grew much more slowly than the average worker. In 2018 in real terms the lowest paid 1% of workers earned an additional £2.70 per hour more than they would have done without the NMW, an additional £5,000 a year for the lowest paid full-time workers.

Our professional body, the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals runs a one-day course on the National Minimum Wage and other worker entitlements. But if you would rather concentrate on what your business does, and outsource your payroll management to us, we would be delighted to help and assure you of our knowledge and competence in this area. We would love to talk to you.

Our head office team is based in Birmingham, but we work with a wide range of individuals, schools and public sector bodies on all aspects of their outsourced payroll processing and management, saving them time and money.

 

 

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.

The employer’s contribution for Auto Enrolment will rise to 3% of qualifying earnings from 6^th April 2019.  The total contribution will rise to 8%, there is no minimum contribution for the employee but their contribution should be sufficient to ensure that the 8% minimum contribution is made.

This is one of the many milestones in the roll out of Auto Enrolment that began in 2012. However, it may cause the most noise owing to the increase that employees will need to make to achieve the 8% minimum contribution.  Are you ready and able to handle this?

At All Payrolls our outsourced payroll management services include HR, which you may need to communicate this change to your staff, and help with the deciphering of the rules around Auto Enrolment. You can tackle this on your own by following this link https://www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk/en/employers/managing-a-scheme/contributions-and-funding to guidance on The Pensions Regulator’s website or you could ask for our help. If you are unsure how to apply the tax relief method that is best for your staff, or have concerns over any of the other more technical aspects of getting your payroll right, we are here to help. We are based in Birmingham but work with clients and organisations of all sizes the length and breadth of the UK.  Please talk to us for outsourced payroll services.

When the National Living Wage was announced employer’s groups were widely reported as saying that this would effect jobs. However, in a report from the Low Pay Commission (LPC) this does not appear to have happened.

The LPC provides recommendations to Government on what the rates of pay for the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage should be. The LPC produces an annual report and one of the key findings in their 2018 report, was that there was no clear evidence of any negative effects on employment arising from the increase in National Living Wage which came into force in April 2018.

The LPC say that 5 million workers have received higher pay rises owing to the uplift in NLW. This equates to a fifth of workers aged 25 and over.  This takes into account a knock-on effect for the bottom 20% of earners, people earning less than £9 per hour.  The LPC says that these workers benefitted because employers maintained a gap between pay for different pay-grades or have made the decision to keep their pay levels above the NLW.  In total 1.6 million people were paid at or below the NLW. Two thirds of people paid the NLW were women.

The LPC went on to say that employers have adapted in order to meet the increase in the NLW. Measures employers have taken includes making less profit, passing on price increases to customers, restructuring their workforce and narrowing the gaps between pay bands. Other stakeholders were reported as saying that improving productivity will be important in order to manage future cost increases.

New increased levels for National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage will take effect on 1^st April 2019. You will need to adjust your payroll management system accordingly.  Alternatively, please talk to our team at All Payrolls based in Birmingham to outsource all your payroll management obligations including the increase in NLW.

An employee on a zero-hours contract can be an agency worker. This is the ruling of the Employment Appeal Tribunal.

The case is Matei v Brooknight Guarding Limited. Matei was employed on a zero-hours contract by Brooknight.  He mostly worked for one client, Mitie.  The Claimant claimed he was an agency worker and entitled to the same basic working conditions as the Mitie staff after 12 weeks of service.

The Tribunal agreed, but Brooknight appealed. The Employment Appeal Tribunal has upheld the original tribunal’s decision which was on the basis that he had been supplied to work temporarily for Mitie, and worked under their supervision and direction. The EAT said the position was temporary as it was not permanent or indefinite and the original tribunal had adopted the correct approach.

Employment rules and legislation is constantly changing. Keeping on-top of this is onerous for businesses who are focussed on doing what they do, not being payroll experts!  What we at All Payrolls do is payroll.  Its as simple as that.  Payroll, the rules surrounding pay, salaries, personal taxation, calculating benefits and so on, this is what we do.  We can usually show a saving in management time, cost and employee satisfaction when we take over as an outsourced payroll provider.  You can contact us and talk to one of our experts about any aspect of payroll or matters related to payroll.