Professional June 2023

COMPLIANCE

What are soft skills, and how can they be used most effectively? CIPP public sector SIG: post-budget compliance update

Shaun Tetley FCIPP, head of pensions and expenditure manager, Portsmouth / Gosport Council, Elliott Mason, senior manager, EY, David Spencer MCIPPdip, payroll advisory lead, EY and Anrika Thinju, manager, EY provide an overview of the hugely popular public sector special interest group (SIG) event, held in London to discuss all things compliance O n 15 March, the chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt presented the latest budget to One notable and perhaps unexpected change announced in the spring budget, however, included the lowering of the additional rate income tax threshold from £150,000 per annum to £125,140.

As well as discussion of the most recent changes in the compliance landscape with the CIPP, a team of tax, payroll and legal colleagues from EY highlighted some of the key areas in which employers need to ensure they have continuing awareness. Compliance reminders for 2023/24 Jeni Morris – head of EY’s national minimum wage (NMW) team and a former HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) inspector – outlined the top five risks to minimum wage compliance: l salaried excess hours calculations l failure to make payments for additional working time l interns and volunteers l salary sacrifice arrangements l knowing how many weeks there are in a year. The correct redress to the latter risk is to know there are 52.18 weeks in a year. As for the remaining risks, the picture is more complicated. For example, employees

Parliament. Financial statements of all guises – be they budgets, mini-budgets or autumn statements – usually contain at least a few (and sometimes more than a few) announcements of interest to payroll professionals. As such, it was timely for the CIPP public sector SIG to partner with accountancy firm EY and hold a post-budget update event in London. This article covers the key topics that were presented during the event. Legislative update for 2023/24 The CIPP’s policy and research officer, Mathew Akrigg discussed some of the key legislative changes in 2023/24, including a new top rate of tax in Scotland of 47% and the cessation of the last remaining Covid-19 tax easements (particularly the re-imposition of tighter rules around who can and cannot claim tax relief for working from home).

Further unexpected announcements included the uplifting of the pensions tax-free annual allowance from £40,000 to £60,000, and the abolition of the pensions lifetime allowance.

| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | June 2023 | Issue 91 28

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