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New digital fit notes rolled out Published: 8 April 2022 Emailed: 13 April 2022
From April 2022 changes are being made to the fit notes that employees provide to their employers to certify sickness related absences.
Fit notes are one of the forms of evidence employees provide to employers as evidence of their sickness. Traditionally, they are printed forms with a doctor’s signature. However, a new version of the fit note will be authorised digitally, and could be sent to employees by email, SMS or other similar channels. Instead of having a signature, it will just have the name of the doctor who authorised it.
The previous fit note will still be valid in the meantime whilst this is being rolled out. The CIPP policy team will provide an update as soon as this is no longer valid as certification of an employee’s sickness.
Current guidance for employers states that employees can self-certify for the first 7 days of their sickness episode (including non-working days). Employers can then ask for a fit note to authorise further sickness absence. Contracts will normally specify when employees must inform their employer of sickness.
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CPI hits 7% in March 2022 Published: 13 April 2022 Emailed: 20 April 2022
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has released the inflation figures for March 2022 showing the Consumer Price Index (CPI) at 7%. This figure is up 0.8% from the February 2022 rate and the highest it has been since February 1992.
CPI is a measure of the change in the price of goods and services over time and the Bank of England target is to keep this figure below 2%. The Bank of England raised the current bank interest rate to 0.75% in order to reach this target.
The march figure does not take into account the recent rise in energy bills as the energy price cap was raised as this will be included in the April figures. The next release by ONS is due on 18 May 2022 and will provide the April data.
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During this parliament higher rate taxpayers set to increase by 2.5 million Published: 18 May 2022 Emailed: 18 May 2022 New research undertaken by Lane Clark & Peacock (LCP) partner Steve Webb indicates that the freezing of tax thresholds and faster than normal wage growth will mean millions more people will pay higher rate income tax. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) published figures June 2021, which shows that at the time of the last election in 2019/20 there were 4.3m people paying income tax at the higher rate of 40% or the additional rate of 45%. They also predicted that the number of higher rate taxpayers would increase by around 300,000 people, which is a total of 4.6m people by 2021/22. The Office for Budget Responsibility: Economic and fiscal outlook report published in March 2022 states: “The income tax personal allowance and higher rate threshold freezes announced in the March 2021 Budget, which mean more income will be sub ject to tax and a greater proportion of it taxed at the higher rate.” Steve Webb said, “three more years of relatively rapid wage growth coupled with a freeze on tax thresholds could bring a further 1.5 million people into higher rate tax by the time of the next election, making a total of 2.5 million more over the whole Parliament.”
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