can be done to raise awareness of Payroll Giving, and the benefits it brings, to encourage more employers to offer the scheme and more donors to sign up. Existing government channels of communication with employers can be better utilised in making the case for Payroll Giving so findings from the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insights Team’s research will be used to inform communications. Payroll Giving will be promoted across the wider public sector with the aspiration that all public sector employees should have access to Payroll Giving and as part of the existing Payroll Giving Awards an Award for 2014 will be created for the best government department or agency. CIPP comment The CIPP Policy team has been part of the group calling on the government to review payroll giving and we are pleased that formal consultation has resulted in some improvements to the system. Earlier in the year we published a joint survey with Workplace Giving UK and responded with the full results. We recommended in our response that consideration should be given to National Insurance contribution relief on all payroll giving donations. However, disappointingly the government has no current plans for this and state that the existing payroll giving scheme works well alongside Gift Aid as both offer the same overall relief. They believe that altering this to make Payroll Giving more generous would undermine Gift Aid and lead to a substitution away from Gift Aid. We are pleased to learn the government intends to reduce the time it takes for PGAs to pass donations over to Charities. However Workplace Giving UK has said that as most do pay contributions over within a month it might not make a significant difference. The government’s response states it will look at providing an online portal, hosted by GOV.UK. We will be looking to work with the government on this proposal as the response states it will explore the possibility of donors being able to search for their employer to check whether they offer payroll giving and the link to the PGA. The CIPP will look to understand how this might work with minimum administration burden on employers, but do hope this online portal will be something much more than exists now. We are extremely pleased the government does not intend to implement the view by some, of forcing employers to offer a payroll giving scheme. The suggestion by charities to include payroll giving information on a P45 would also not be supported by the CIPP as we hope with the introduction of RTI and personal tax statements the P45 will become obsolete. We also recommended the government continue with the annual awards ceremony and are pleased the government not only intends to do this but also introduce an award in 2014 for the best government department or agency. Looking ahead, the government will be hosting a series of working groups, involving charities, PGAs and other stakeholders, to help PGAs and charities consider further improvements to the Payroll Giving process. The CIPP policy team will continue to be part of this consultation group and don’t forget, the CIPP’s Samantha Mann and Michael Sanders from the Behavioural Insight Team at the Cabinet Office will be delivering a presentation at the Annual Payroll & Pensions Conference this year on how to motivate employees to join the employer payroll giving scheme.
Workplace Giving UK offer CIPP members a special introductory offer on The Big Charity Whip Round
23 September 2013
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 366 of 519
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