Employers who use the services of Employment Agencies should be aware that new rules, entitling agency staff to the same terms and conditions as permanent employees, after twelve weeks, could be brought into force as early as April 2010.

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Those of us who continue to be concerned about the misuse of personal data and identity theft will be pleased to learn that as from this April misusers of personal data will face a possible prison sentence of up to two years.

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The goverment will carry out a review of the DRA (default retirement age) during 2010 and the general opinion is that they are very likely to increase the DRA from 65 to 68.

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Employers will not now face interest charges on late payments of PAYE throughout the tax year 2010/11.   These charges, which were due to start in April, will not now be implemented until April 2012 at the earliest.   Interest will, however, continue to be charged on remittances outstanding at the year end, ie the total due to HMRC for the period 6 April 2009 until 5 April 2010 must be paid over by 19 April (22nd if paying electronically.)  Interest will be levied on any sum remaining unpaid after that date.

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Workers must exercise choice about working longer hours

At present, UK workers are able to “opt out” of the Working Hours Regulation 48 hour maximum working week and the DTI wants this to continue.

However, it has come to light that some employers are pressurising their employees to sign an opt out agreement and this is illegal. Workers must be allowed to choose whether or not to work more than 48 hours per week. An individual worker may cancel the opt-out agreement at any time although the employer and worker can agree how much notice is needed to cancel (which can be up to three months). But in the absence of an agreed notice period, the worker only needs to give a minimum of seven days’ notice of cancellation. Workers cannot be fairly dismissed or subjected to detriment for refusing to sign an opt-out. As an employer you must keep a record of who has agreed to work longer hours.

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Pension Provision

As part of a pilot scheme, the government is sending out pension packs to all the employees of one hundred selected companies. The aim is to find out if employees are receiving the relevant pension advice and information from their employers and, more importantly, if they are actually making changes to their financial arrangements as a result.

If you employ 5 or more employees you may have to make a stakeholder pension scheme available to your staff (although some employers will be exempt).

At Fergus Neilson we believe that employers who offer a pension scheme to their employees attract better employees and keep them longer. We make no extra charges to cover pension deductions as part of our comprehensive payroll service.

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IT security advisers have recently published a report which reveals that 7 out of 10 second hand hard drives and laptop computers bought randomly at auction were found to contain highly sensitive retrievable data including employee contact details, payroll records, and details of pension schemes. The report concludes that failure to secure personal data is a serious breach of the Data Protection Act which could also lead to a significant loss of consumer and employee confidence.

Outsourcing your payroll with Fergus Neilson will always guarantee complete confidentiality of employment records as we operate ultra-secure procedures to ensure total data protection. Please contact Linda Ferguson to obtain a copy of our Data Privacy policy and Terms and Conditions of Trading.

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The statutory allowance for full time employees is 28 days per year (part time employees receive a pro rata number of days depending on hours worked).  Holiday days start accruing from the first day of employment and continue to the last day of employment, even if you are dismissed without notice for misconduct.  Much of our post contains queries about holiday entitlement, so if anybody out there could do with some help in this area just let us know.

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Young people (who are new to the rituals and requirements of employment) and students in particular, who may have several jobs in one year, or several jobs at the same time are regularly being overtaxed because they are not being issued with a P46 whenever they start a job.  Instead they are taxed at basic rate.

There needs to be some basic education given to these kids in the 6th form.  When they are being taught how to construct a CV for example, wouldn’t it be a good idea to instruct them also in the workings of our PAYE system?

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An electronic ‘fit note’ is to replace paper sick notes from 2010 in a bid to get more people back to work and cut the estimated £100 billion annual cost of sick leave.

Health secretary Alan Johnson announced this week that GPs will stop issuing paper-based sick notes and start providing electronic fit notes following the first ever review of the health of the health of Britain’s working age population.

The government said it wants to switch from a paper-based system to an electronic one to make it less onerous for GPs and easier for practices to audit their clinical practice on medical certification.

So far we have been unable to find out exactly how these electronic ‘fit notes’ will actually work – and whether it will make much difference to those of us running small businesses.

If anybody out there has any more information on these ‘fit notes’ then please do get in contact with us as we would love to hear from you!

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