POLICY HUB
On your behalf
Welcome to the latest update on what the CIPP’s policy and research team team has been involved in, on behalf of you, our members, and the wider payroll profession, throughout July and August Policy team update
The Policy and Research Team l Mathew Akrigg MCIPPdip MAAT, Policy and Research Officer l Samantha O’Sullivan ChFCIPPdip, Policy and Advisory Lead l Sarah Smith MCIPPdip, Policy and Research Officer.
Sam attended a roundtable discussion hosted by Insider, in partnership with Isio, around ‘Building better workplaces’. You can read the overview here: https:// ow.ly/1nfX50Wtf8z. Sarah delivered a session at the IPPE Training and Education Conference (or ITEC, as we call it) on national minimum wage (NMW) and she loved getting to know our tutors, assessors and moderators a bit better. Consultation and call for evidence (CfE) updates We wanted to provide a summary of our recommendations to the Low Pay Commission (LPC) in our formal response to its 2025 consultation on the future of NMW. The CIPP suggested that: 1. A wider review of employment cost policies needs to be considered moving forward. This is to ensure ever-increasing costs to employers doesn’t impact them so heavily, sometimes meaning they have to make employment cuts or go out of business entirely. 2. The LPC could provide longer approximates of what the NMW and national living wage (NLW) rates would be for future years during the transition period of aligning the 18–20-year-old rate with the NLW over either two or four years. 3. Aligning the 18–20-year-old rate with the NLW over two years is the preferred option to ensure all adults are paid the NLW. 4. Consideration should be given to a further option, which falls in between the two- and four-year period, meaning the rates are aligned within three years. 5. A review of the apprenticeship rate should be undertaken, with the apprenticeship rate only being payable for those people in education (up to 18 years old). It was suggested that a scaled apprentice pay structure should be considered, which would increase over the years in which an employee is undertaking their apprenticeship. 6. There’s an industry desire for the NMW
regulations to be reviewed, so that salary sacrifice pension contributions don’t reduce pay for the purposes of NMW calculations. 7. More publication and clarification around the rules for rounding should be made available, to ensure calculation methods are understood and adhered to. The team has also responded to the Parental leave and pay review: call for evidence as published by the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Sarah hosted a Think Tank with full, fellow and Chartered members, alongside representatives from DWP. Our members’ views fed into our formal response, which you can read online, at: https://ow.ly/3Kav50QigsG. Forums and working groups The policy team is privileged to sit on several HM Revenue and Customs forums. Sam, Mat and Sarah attend several forums each month. As with events, the forums go quiet over the summer months, which has allowed the team some time back in their schedules to concentrate on preparing for National Payroll Week and our Annual Conference and Exhibition. The team sits on these forums to ensure our members’ feedback is provided at Government level. We’ll always update you on our findings and information provided through these groups via Professional and News Online . If you have any issues you would like to raise at any of the professional forums we sit on, please reach out to the team by emailing us at Policy@cipp.org.uk. The last 12 months The team was recently asked to review how many events we’d attended between July 2024 and June 2025, and we felt it would be nice to share those statistics with you. We have: l presented at 63 events l attended 11 events as delegates l attended 59 Government forums / roundtables. n
BeKnowledgeable series July’s BeKnowledgeable session explored something a little bit different. Sarah is the policy team’s soft skills guru, having worked in several different industries, all of which have required a unique skill set. Sarah has filled her soft skills toolkit to the brim and took lots of personal experiences to the session delivered in July. Keep an eye on your emails and the events pages of the website, as our next series of BeKnowledgeables are taking place on: l 16 October
l 12 November l 10 December.
We keep the topics open, to ensure the team delivers updates on the most relevant areas of importance for our members. Events Throughout July and August, events go quiet to coincide with the summer holidays. However, the team was kept busy upskilling, researching and ensuring the Institute’s views were heard. Mat attended the launch event of The Pensions Review: Final Recommendations from The Institute for Fiscal Studies. You can read about it here: https://ow.ly/ Why850Wtf2Y.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | September 2025 | Issue 113 6
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