The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
News On Line
The NHS Pay Review Body (NPRB) is an independent body that is tasked with putting recommendations to the government for NHS pay rises. In March 2021 the Department for Health and Social care (DHSC) submitted evidence to the NPRB recommending a 1% increase. However, a review of all the evidence has seen the NPRB recommend a 3% increase which the government has accepted for NHS staff in England. This rise will be back dated to April 2021. The NPRB makes recommendations across all the UK, however the devolved nations can choose to accept them. In Scotland, NHS staff have been offered a 4% pay rise backdated to December 2020, in addition to a £500 bonus scheme funded by the Scottish Government’s Covid -19 support package. Across the UK around 1.6 million people work for the NHS across multiple trusts, making the NHS one of the world’s largest employers. These changes will impact thousands of payroll professionals who will need to process the increases alongside the backdated payments.
Back to contents
Parliament to debate mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting 30 July 2021
A petition, which called for the introduction of mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting, collected over 130,000 signatures, meaning that this will be debated in Parliament on 20 September 2021.
Currently, there is a requirement for employers with 250 or more employers to publish their gender pay gap, but there is growing support for also making ethnicity pay gap reporting mandatory. The petition stated that the new requirement would work:
“To shine a light on race / ethnicity - based inequality in the workplace so that they can be addressed.”
A number of organisations have recently urged the Government to implement this. Additionally, a consultation ran between October 2018 to January 2019 on the very topic of introducing mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting, and the current status is that the Government is analysing the responses it received.
The debate will be available to watch online on the UK Parliament YouTube channel.
CIPP comment
Although not currently mandatory, has your company already opted to report on its ethnicity pay gap? We would love to hear from you, at Policy@cipp.org.uk.
Back to contents
Unspent apprenticeship levy funds easier to access for SMEs 25 August 2021
The Department for Education confirmed that improvements were being made to the apprenticeship levy system, and one of them involves making it easier for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to access the unspent levy funds of other employers. Employers who pay the Apprenticeship Levy will be able to transfer unspent levy funds to other employers via a new online pledge function on GOV.UK, which has yet to be established. Those employers will also have the option of defining the criteria of the apprenticeship they want to support via transfer and will be able to set the amount of their funds available for transfer (up to a maximum of 25% of their annual funds.)
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Payroll: need to know
cipp.org.uk
Page 46 of 220
Made with FlippingBook - Online magazine maker