| FURLOUGH 4.0 |
| Our partners at www.PayrollForNannies.co.uk provide payroll advice for parents and nannies and have provided this content. For more advice and support please get in touch with them. Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a new raft of support measures connected to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic. This seems to be a response to the growing lock-down and complaints that the government was not doing enough to assist businesses and their employees. The Job Support Scheme When originally announced, the JSS – which will come into effect on 1 November – saw employers paying a third of their employees’ wages for hours not worked and required employees to be working 33% of their normal hours. This announcement reduces the employer contribution to those unworked hours to just 5%, and reduces the minimum hours requirements to 20%, so those working just one day a week will be eligible. Employers will pay their staff normally for hours they work. Then, they’ll be paid two-thirds of their pay for the remaining hours (with the employer covering 5% and the government paying 95%). So people will still see lower take-home pay – we have prepared the table below. Normal Hours JSS Hours Take home percentage of contracted hours 20% 80% 74% 25% 75% 75% 30% 70% 76% 33% 67% 77% 35% 65% 78% 40% 60% 80% 45% 55% 81% 50% 50% 83% 55% 45% 85% 60% 40% 86% 65% 35% 88% 70% 30% 90% 75% 25% 92% 80% 20% 93% 85% 15% 95% 90% 10% 97% 95% 5% 98% The maximum payment will be £1541.75 per month. The cap is set above median earnings for employees in August at a reference salary of £3,125 per month. The employer will be reimbursed in arrears for the government contribution. The relevant employee(s) must not be on a redundancy notice. The JSS is intended to protect viable jobs over next six months after the furlough scheme ends at the end of the month. All small and medium-sized firms with a UK PAYE scheme and UK bank account are eligible – but large firms are only eligible if their turnover has fallen in the pandemic and can document this. The JSS is open to firms who have not used the earlier CJRS scheme. That means that if someone was being paid £587 for their unworked hours, the government would be contributing £543 and their employer only £44. Employers will continue to be entitled to receive the £1,000 Job Retention Bonus: https://src-time.co.uk/the-job-retention-bonus-explained/ Self-Employment Income Support Scheme As part of the Winter Economy Plan, Rishi Sunak had announced an extension to the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). There was to be a lump sum to cover November to January next year, worth 20 per cent of average monthly profits, capped at £1,875. There was also to be a second grant for February to April 2021of an unspecified value. Today’s announcement sets the amount of profits covered by the two forthcoming self-employed grants from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, meaning the maximum grant will increase from £1,875 to £3,750. Business Support Grants The Chancellor has also announced approved additional funding to support cash grants of up to £2,100 per month primarily for businesses in the hospitality, accommodation and leisure sector who may be adversely impacted by the restrictions in high-alert level areas. These grants will be available retrospectively for areas who have already been subject to restrictions and come on top of higher levels of additional business support for Local Authorities moving into Tier 3. Local Authorities (LAs) will be able to support businesses in high-alert level areas which are not legally closed, but which are severely impacted by the restrictions on socialising. The funding LAs will receive will be based on the number of hospitalities, hotel, B&B, and leisure businesses in their area. LAs will receive a funding amount that will be the equivalent of:For properties with a rateable value of £15,000 or under, grants of £934 per month.For properties with a rateable value of between £15,000-£51,000, grants of £1,400 per month.For properties with a rateable value of £51,000, grants of £2,100 per month.This is equivalent to 70% of the grant amounts given to legally closed businesses (worth up to £3,000/month). Local Authorities will also receive a 5% top up amount to these implied grant amounts to cover other businesses that might be affected by the local restrictions, but which do not neatly fit into these categories. It will be up to Local Authorities to determine which businesses are eligible for grant funding in their local areas, and what precise funding to allocate to each business – the above levels are an approximate guide. Businesses in Very High alert level areas will qualify for greater support whether closed (up to £3,000/month) or open. In the latter case support is being provided through business support packages provided to Local Authorities as they move into the alert level. SRC-Time are one of the South East’s leading accountancy firms in advising the self-employed and partnerships in all aspects of their tax affairs and we are able to assist in any issue raised above. |
Tag: pay
Common nanny pay issues
When parents employ a nanny it’s often the first time they have need to administer a payroll and pay regularly for services. In all the confusion it can be easy to let some things slip through the cracks, like transferring the money on the right date…
Problem #1 My boss never pays me on time
This is more common than you’d think. Many nannies report late payments from their employers, or having to leave messages to make sure they’re paid on time. It has a knock on effect on nanny’s bank balance and they may incur charges if their direct debits go out without sufficient funds. Solution? Set up a standing order when the job starts.
Problem #2 The amount in my account and on my payslip don’t match up
First you need to make sure you’re looking at your payslip correctly. The figure that should be in your account is in the bottom right, not the top right. The top right is the gross figure that you should have agreed at interview and written in your contract. The bottom figure is the net amount, which is what ends up in your account. If that net amount on your payslip doesn’t match what’s in your account then your boss has either over or under paid you, and you need to find out why. Sometimes this is because overtime has been added to your pay but not processed through payroll, or because you’ve had time off sick but it’s not been processed through payroll. Sometimes it’s because you agreed a net wage which is very difficult to match up on a payroll run each month even if your boss has paid what you agreed. Solution? Check your payslip, your contract and your working hours. There will be a discrepancy in the figures somewhere and when you find out what it is you can sort it.
Problem #3 My overtime hasn’t been counted
If you do overtime late in the month it can be tough for employers to get that information to the nanny payroll company on time, or they may have forgotten to add it to the payslip. The other, more alarming, situation is where your overtime appears on your payslip but not in your account. This probably means your employers have a standing order, notified the payroll company and forgot to manually transfer you the overtime payment. Solution? Gently remind them to declare your overtime and/or pay you.
Problem#4 My boss is making extra deductions
The standard deductions that should be made from your pay are tax and employee national insurance contributions. You may also have deductions for your pension and student loan repayments. Your contract may specific additional situations where your employer can take money out of your pay, for example if you are responsible for damaging their car they may deduct the insurance excess directly from your pay. If you see extra deductions, or you think other things have been deducted from your pay check your contract to see whether it’s allowed. Solution? Call the payroll company to check what’s being taken off and talk to your boss.
Problem #5 My boss never reimburses my expenses
Many nanny employers provide a kitty which means their nanny doesn’t have to pay for activities and so on out of their own pocket, but some prefer to reimburse expenses. Mileage is an expense which is commonly reimbursed, rather than taken out of the kitty. Paying up front can leave you short of cash at the end of the month, and if your boss doesn’t pay you back you’re effectively subsidising your charges. Solution? Stop paying out. Insist on having a kitty or only do free activities within walking distance.
Review Thyme
My heartfelt thanks to those who commented on my last post. Review time has been and gone and it went (mostly) well. We settled eventually on a small payrise, and a gift to show our appreciation with plans of more little surprises to come, not that I want to give too much away in case she’s reading. Ahem.
It was good to have the opportunity to sit down and chat about how things are going, having the time to talk about Oliver, how he’s getting on and what he might find interesting over the coming few months was really helpful. I now have a shopping list of toys and resources, and instructions to investigate different activities. Sometimes I wonder who’s the boss!
I got my knuckles rapped for lateness a couple of times. I know I’m guilty of realising I’m still in the office and should be halfway through the commute, and I do call as soon as I remember, but that adds half an hour to a working days all round and kicks Ol’s bedtime routine into touch, so I do know I really shouldn’t do it. Without making excuses it can be hard to wrap things up on time. A task that was only supposed to take half an hour can double or even treble quite easily and that leaves everything out of whack.
Surprise question of the night: ‘Are you anticipating any changes in your family circumstances over the next year?’. The mind flashes through redundancy (please, no) and house moves (if we win the lottery) to the fear that she’s seen the prenatal vitamins at the back of our en suite cupboard and jumped to conclusions. I hastily took another sip of wine.
The only real problem was holiday. May is always a pretty terrible time for me work-wise and this year Ed’s schedule is jammed too. Guess when Ellie wants to take a couple of days?
I know it’s technically legal for an employer to refuse holiday, but I think that’s a pretty horrid thing to do without an outstanding reason, and ‘it’s a bit inconvenient’ isn’t really going to stand up when it’s something your nanny really wants to do. The only thing is I’m not even sure either of us will be able to get time off. Neither set of grandparents will be any good and that leaves us rather stuck. Maybe I was being naïve when I wouldn’t have to worry about this kind of problem. Luckily Ellie has developed a good nanny network, and is going to ask around, although she informs me that some of them are already in shares and couldn’t take on an extra one or OFSTED might cause trouble.
Ed also floated the idea of asking Ellie to come on holiday with us in the summer when we go away with another family. I agree it would be heavenly to have on-tap help rather than finding a local sitter, so the subject was duly broached. I could tell straight away it wasn’t going to be an instant winner. Naturally we promised to pay all expenses, the total working hours wouldn’t change and we’d expect the other family to chip in and pay on top of her salary if they wanted to share the childcare but something still wasn’t sitting right. Given that we want to book soon it would be good to have a reply.
The final part of the review was an idea I’d seen on a well known parenting site, offering to contribute to or pay for any professional development courses. I take it this isn’t a very common thing to do as Ellie looked a bit surprised. She renewed her First Aid certificate just before coming to work for us so this would be something completely different. I suggested a couple of courses I’d googled and suggested she ask her nanny friends for inspiration but I don’t really mind what she does. I’m sure whatever it is will benefit her, and by extension Ol, in some way or another and that’s the whole idea!
So there as my first experience of a formal review with a nanny. In hindsight I’d probably ask her to think about a few things beforehand, not in a scary self-evaluation kind of way but just to have some ideas so she doesn’t feel so put on the spot. Live and learn!