• Within six months, the Home Office should write to the Committee setting out what actions the competent authorities are taking to reduce the time potential victims wait for a decision, and how the reformed NRM will reduce decision making times further, including what the target time for a conclusive decision will be. • The Home Office needs to work with the National Crime Agency, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Police and Crime Commissioners, local police forces and local authorities to urgently develop a set of clear, practical steps and good practice guidance to understand why there are regional variations in tackling the issue and how these can be reduced.
The Prime Minister told the Work and Pensions Committee that her government was committed to doing everything possible to support victims of modern slavery. To achieve the Prime Minister’s objectives, the Committee state that the government must now be thinking, as imaginatively as possible, about developing a mark two stage of policies to follow up on its world-leading 2015 Modern Slavery Act.
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Compensation planned for Armed Forces paying Scottish income tax 7 June 2018
In a recent hearing by the Public Accounts Committee Lieutenant General Nugee said that for armed forces stationed in Scotland compensation is being planned to equalise pay due to the additional tax that they are paying in Scotland.
The hearing was gathering oral evidence about the skills shortages in the armed forces. The issue of the differing rates of income tax in Scotland to those of the rest of the UK was raised and the question asked if there had been any discussions with the Treasury about easing that burden to ensure that service personnel based in Scotland pay the same level of tax as everyone else in the UK. Apparently there have been quite lengthy discussions and according to Lt Gen Nugee, who is the Chief of Defence People at the Ministry of Defence, the Secretary of State announced publicly that he wanted an answer within six weeks. The Lt Gen said: “We are responding to that and have put a number of proposals on the table to the Secretary of State as to how to mitigate the higher Scottish rates of income tax for our people up in Scotland. We are determined to do something for them”, he added, “to make sure that we equalise the tax as much as we can.”
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Parental Leave and Pay Arrangements 8 June 2018
A Private Members' Bill has been presented to Parliament which would require employers with more than 250 employees to publish information about parental leave, and pay in the course of such leave.
Jo Swinson, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats and sponsor of the bill, told People Management:
“A headline figure of 54,000 women in Britain are forced out of their jobs every year as a result of pregnancy discrimination, and when I was introducing shared parental leave as a minister I was really struck by research in which one of the barriers men cited over how comfortable they were about taking shared parental leave was a concern about how it would impact on their career.
Ultimately, this is not good for the economy – just because someone is a parent it doesn’t mean that they lose value, so it’s a very inefficient use of talent because people are forced out or feel they have to leave their jobs.”
The Second reading of the Bill is scheduled to take place on Friday 15 June 2018.
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
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