POLICY HUB
On your behalf
Happy new year and happy preparation period for tax year end, coming in April. This issue, we cover what the CIPP’s policy and research team has been getting up to over the last two months Policy team update
Forums The policy team is privileged to sit on several HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) forums. Samantha O’Sullivan, policy lead and Mathew Akrigg, policy and research officer, attended several forums between them in December, including the: l one-to-many compliance advisory board l collection of student loans consultation group l construction industry forum l employment status and intermediaries forum l employment and payroll group. The team sits on these forums to ensure our members’ feedback is provided at government level. We will always update you on our findings and information provided via these groups through Professional and News Online . If you have any issues you would like raising at any of the professional forums we sit on, please reach out to the team by emailing us at policy@cipp.org.uk .
Following on from the team’s response, Sam was (for the second time in three months) asked to provide oral evidence to the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee in late January on this very topic. It’s fantastic that the Institute and the policy team are being recognised at parliamentary level, and our feedback is being received at a ministerial level. The Department for Work and Pensions opened a CfE into the long-term direction of workplace saving. The purpose was to explore whether a lifetime provider model would improve outcomes for savers, how the collective defined contribution market can grow and whether there are synergies between the two. The team responded to this CfE in January and highlighted that no additional administrative burden should be imposed on payroll professionals if implementing a lifetime provider model. If you’d like to take a closer look at the team’s formal responses to consultations and CfEs, you can do so here https:// ow.ly/3Kav50QigsG. Events Mat delivered an extremely well-attended BeKnowledgeable back in December on the key changes to holiday pay and entitlement for part-year and irregular hours workers. This was the perfect platform to update members on our new training course: ‘ Holiday pay: what's changed?’, which started from 17 January. This course gives you an understanding of the new holiday pay legislation which is now in place for 2024. To find out more, head over to the
training area of our website, or go here: https://ow.ly/XEiA50QifXb. HMRC reached out to the team to request we facilitate several think tanks with our members around the work they’re doing in supporting employers to meet their national minimum wage obligations. The team recognises the different challenges faced between in-house and service provider payroll professionals, so separate events were held to ensure those differences could be conveyed back to HMRC. These events took place over December and January and were very well received. HMRC representatives delivered our January BeKnowledgeable on organised labour fraud. The representatives gave an overview of two frauds mainly impacting the payroll industry: payroll company fraud and mini-umbrella company fraud. If you happened to miss this session but want to learn more about these important topics, turn to the ‘Hot topic’ in this issue! Get ahead of the new tax year, and let’s BeConnected Our BeConnected events run at the start of the calendar year, providing associate members and above with a thorough legislative update. They're either face-to-face or online to ensure a successful launch into the new tax year and familiarity with what’s changing and why, along with what’s staying the same. Not only are the events the perfect opportunity to upskill ahead of the new tax year, they’re also an opportunity for wider learning and networking. These events kick off in Birmingham on 7 February 2024, so don’t miss out and book your place now: https://ow.ly/2boA50Qiguq. n
Consultation and call for evidence (CfE) updates
The Work and Pensions Select Committee opened an inquiry looking into the current effectiveness of statutory sick pay (SSP), in supporting claimants, and whether SSP should be reformed to better enable a recipient’s recovery and return to work. The team published a short survey so our members and the wider industry could have their say – thank you if you took the time to complete this. The team collated all feedback provided and responded to the CfE in early December. Our response has been published in the Policy Hub area of the website.
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward | February 2024 | Issue 97 6
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