On 12 November, the Department or Work and Pensions published the findings of research exploring small employers’ likely responses to the workplace pension reforms set to come into force in October 2012.

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Posted November 18th, 2009 | No Comments »

Figures issued by the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC) show that, by the end of September 2009, over 797,000 children were benefiting from child maintenance.  It is now a year since CMEC took over responsibility for the Child Support Agency.  The latest figures also show that
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Posted November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

Section 394 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003 imposes a tax charge on the provision of relevant benefits from an employer-financed retirement benefits scheme (EFRBS).  For example, if a retired employee continues to be provided with private medical insurance, it is fully taxable under these rules.

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Posted November 4th, 2009 | No Comments »

In the introduction to last week’s newsletter, we referred to a tax tribunal decision that was likely to affect the way in which employers determine the start date of a maternity pay period. We have now been able to examine the ruling in detail and its implications do indeed require careful consideration. One unfortunate problem with the judgement is that the tribunal judge appears to have failed to apply his reasoning correctly in one aspect of the decision, but it is the reasoning around the relevant legislation that is significant, not the final outcome of the case.

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Posted October 28th, 2009 | No Comments »

With effect from 1 October 2009, regulation 31 of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 was amended so that any payments made by customers by way of a service charge, tip, gratuity or cover charge may not count towards the national minimum wage (NMW).  Each worker’s pay, excluding such customer payments, must meet the minimum wage requirement.

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Posted October 8th, 2009 | No Comments »

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has published the third of the three consultation documents that were promised on the rules and procedures that will apply to the provision by employers of Pension Personal Accounts.  Employers will be required, during a transitional period starting in 2012, to enrol employees in either an existing occupational or personal pension scheme or in a new workplace pension personal account scheme.  Whichever scheme is used by an employer to meet the statutory requirements, it must provide for automatic enrolment of jobholders and the employer must make contributions into the scheme.

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Posted October 8th, 2009 | No Comments »

Following on from the announcement on 15 September that additional paternity leave and pay will be introduced from April 2011, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published the third consultation document on the subject, this time providing information on the detail of the policy, supported by draft Regulations and a detailed Partial Impact Assessment.

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Posted September 29th, 2009 | No Comments »

The latest website tohave its guidance moved to the central Directgov and Business Link websites is DWP’s Pension Service website.

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Posted September 29th, 2009 | No Comments »

There has been no substantive information provided by the Government for over 18 months on its promise to extend paid maternity leave to a year and introduce additional paternity leave. There have been lots of rumours, however, generally propounding the view that, in view of the economic problems faced by employers, the Government was having second thoughts about extending the existing paid leave entitlements.

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Posted September 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »

Minimum wage rates for agricultural workers in England and Wales come into force from 1 October 2009, at the same time as the 2009 National Minimum Wage rates.

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Posted September 23rd, 2009 | No Comments »