MEMBERSHIP INSIGHT
Section 51 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 prescribes the conditions for parental order applications. The fact that parent B and parent C are living as partners in an enduring family relationship – and the child will be living with them in the UK – means that they satisfy that condition. Parent B and parent C can decide who will take statutory adoption pay and leave (SAL) and who will take the statutory paternity pay and leave. The parent who decides to take SAL can curtail and let the other parent take shared parental pay and leave. Q: One of our employees requested two weeks of statutory paternity leave and pay (SPL and SPP). Whilst on week one of the SPL he handed in his notice and will leave part-way through the second week. Would he be entitled to SPP for the second week? A: The employee is not entitled to SPL, but he is entitled to SPP as long as he does not work for the other employer during the second week of SPP. If he works for someone else during that period no SPP is due to them. This is covered by Regulation 17 of the Statutory Paternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay (General) Regulations 2002. Q: An employee’s 90% of average weekly earnings (AWE) are less than the standard rate of statutory maternity pay (SMP), so what do I pay her? What would happen if there was a pay rise? A: The SMP rate is six weeks at 90% of AWE and 33 weeks paid at the standard rate of £145.18 or 90% of AWE if lower. A pay rise would affect SMP for the full 39 weeks if the new AWE was either less or the same as the standard rate. Q: The company where I work only pays outstanding holiday pay to leavers if the employee requests it, so do not pay this automatically. Whilst morally I feel that this is wrong is there any legal ruling which says this is an acceptable process? A: An employer must pay outstanding statutory leave upon the termination of the employee regardless of the reason they are leaving and an employee does not have to request the outstanding leave. I refer to this link: https://bit.ly/2iDIa7K. If an employer offers more than the statutory entitlement of 5.6 weeks’ annual
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Q: I have a question about Christmas parties for employees and Christmas parties for employee’s children. Is it the number of people who attend or who have been invited to a staff Christmas party that you need to divide the cost by? Would you have to report the children’s party? A: To decide if you have exceeded the £150.00 per head exemption point you would need to divide the cost of the employee’s Christmas party by the number who attended. If it has been exceeded, you would have to report the whole cost to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). In regard to the children’s Christmas party this would also be reported in full as this would be considered a benefit provided for the family or household of an employee. If the employer did not want the employee to have to pay the tax on this benefit this is something that they may be able to put in a pay as you earn settlement agreement Q: Do you know why for the purpose of calculating class 1 National Insurance contributions (NICs), the amount of earnings used is always less than the gross pay for tax by approximately £2 to £3? I do not understand how this relates to the thresholds; for example, an employee paid basic pay of £3,750.00: this is used as the taxable pay for the period, but £3,747.00 is used for NICs. A: Usually the gross taxable pay for the period will be the same as the NIC- able pay, but there can be a difference
depending on which method you use to calculate NICs. Taking your example, if I use the exact percentage you would use £3,750 to calculate NICs, but if your system uses the tables method you would use the CA38 booklet ( National Insurance contributions tables A, H, J, M, and Z ) to calculate NICs. Page 38 of the booklet should be used in this case, but as there wasn’t a figure of £3,750 to use for the calculation, you are expected to round down to the nearest figure of £3,747 which is a difference of £3.00. Your question implies that the payroll system is using the tables method, not the exact percentage, which solves the problem. You need to confirm this with your software provider though, as it means you cannot use the exact percentage in any manual calculations if the table method is being used by the system. Q: I have an unusual situation involving a surrogacy birth; the scenario being as follows: parent A is the biological mother of the child; parent B is the biological father of the child; and parent C is the male partner of the biological father and our employee. Parent A is taking maternity leave/ pay. Parent B is taking paternity leave/ pay from the time that the baby is due. Parent C wants to take six weeks of adoption leave/pay from the time that the baby is due. Is this possible? A: Both parent B and parent C must apply for a parental order to adopt the baby in order for both parents to take statutory leave.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | December 2018 / January 2019 | Issue 46 8
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