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Flexible Working: New Rules

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From 30th June 2014 the right to request flexible working has been extended to all employees. Until now, this right only applied to the parents of children under 17 or 18 in the case of parents of disabled children or those caring for an adult.

All employees have a statutory right to ask their employer for a change in their contractual terms and conditions of employment to work flexibly provided they have worked for their employer for 26 weeks continuously at the date the application is made. An employee can only make one request in any 12 month period. Employers might consider introducing a policy for handling requests to work flexibly, making it clear to both employee and employer what the procedure should be. Requests by employees to working flexibly should be made in writing stating 3 things:

* specifying the change the employee is seeking and the date they want the changes to happen
* what effect they think the change would have on the employer and how, in their opinion, any such effect might be dealt with
* that this application is a statutory request

Employees requests must be considered objectively and an employer can only refuse them if there are business reasons for doing so, such as if it will have a detrimental impact on performance, quality, the ability to meet customer demand or the burden of additional costs to the employer. There are however benefits to flexible working for both the employee and the employer:
* improved morale
* reduced absence levels
* increased productivity
* increased loyalty
* retention of valuable workers
* employee satisfaction
* workforce flexibility

For more guidance , here are 2 helpful guides from ACAS:

RIGHT TO REQUEST GUIDE

HANDLING A REQUEST

Holiday Entitlement

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With summer fast approaching, your staff will be booking their summer holidays and wanting to receive their holiday pay, so here are the basic facts for statutory holiday entitlement.

* Workers have the right to get paid leave; accrue holiday entitlement during sick, maternity or paternity leave; choose to take holiday at the same time as sick leave
* Most workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday. Employers can include bank holidays as part of statutory annual leave.
* 5 day week workers must receive 28 days paid holiday. (5 days multiplied by 5.6 weeks)
* Part time workers are also entitled to 5.60 weeks paid holiday, but this may equate to less days per year if they work less days; working a 3 day week would equate to 16.8 days for example.
* Employees working irregular hours will need to calculate their holiday entitlement for irregular hours here
* Annual leave begins to accrue as soon as an employee starts their job. If a worker starts or leaves part way through a holiday year, their entitlement must be pro rated accordingly. Use the
holiday calculator here
* Employees who get 28 days annual leave can carry over up to a maximum of 8 days into the next holiday year.
* Shift workers or casual workers’ holiday pay should be calculated on an average of their last 12 weeks pay.
* Employers can choose to offer more leave than the legal minimum. If they do, they don’t have to apply all the rules that apply to statutory leave to the extra leave.

£2000 Employment Allowance

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So you may have seen the advert on the telly, or you may have had a lovely letter from 10 Downing Street saying the government’s new employment allowance will cut up to £2000 from your employer National Insurance bill. Around 1.25 million business employing someone will benefit from this new allowance and a third of all businesses will see their National Insurance bill abolished. You must claim this allowance through your payroll ‘just by ticking a box in your payroll software’ and informing HMRC you are claiming the allowance via an EPS RTI submission. This all sounds great, but for some payroll software, it is not as simple as just a tick in the box, but an extra administration process and only certain employers are able to claim the allowance; the criteria of who can claim is definitely not so simple. There is detailed guidance which you should read before you start claiming.

The businesses that especially need to check if they are eligible are:

* Companies with two or more payrolls under the same PAYE reference
* Connected businesses and charities
* Public authorities
* Pharmacies
* Educational institutions
* Domestic staff
* Franchises
* Function either wholly or mainly of a public nature

Tax Year End Procedure 2013-14

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Now that you are reporting PAYE information to HMRC in real time, there is no longer a need for a P35 or P14s anymore. Instead, the usual questions and declaration that were part of the P35, will now be part of your final Full Payment Submission (FPS) or Employer Payment Summary (EPS) if applicable.

For most employers, the final submission will be the last FPS. This is the one telling HMRC about the very last employee payment for 2013-14. The tax year ends on 5th April 2014 so, for most employers, their final submission will be made on or before that date. If you don’t pay any employees in the final month of the tax year, send your final submission on an EPS by 19th April 2014. You can also use an EPS to report the ‘Final submission for the tax year’ and answer the questions, after all your FPS have been successfully submitted. So, for instance, if you file your March FPS on your pay day as usual, but forget to say it is you ‘final’ FPS, you can file a final EPS and answer the same year end questions at this point.
So firstly, ensure you have included EVERY person you have paid during the tax year through your payroll including all students and casuals. Ensure HMRC have successfully received all earlier submissions. Ensure you have all employees’ correct names, addresses, dates of birth and NI numbers.

In previous years, you had a deadline of 19th May to submit your P35 and P14s but RTI has changed that. When sending your final RTI submissions, the usual time limits apply, so you should send your final submission on or before the date of your last employee payment in the tax year (or by 19th April if you are sending an EPS). Employers will not be able to file an EPS relating to 2013/14 after 19th April 2014. If a correction or amendment is needed, employers will need to submit an EYU (Earlier Year Update).

P60s must still be issued to all employees still working for you at 5th April 2014 by 31st May 2014.

Auto enrolment: Start Planning Now

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We can’t stress enough how important it is that you start planning for Auto enrolment now. Your staging date may seem a long way off, if you know it already, but if you leave it too late to think about choosing the right pension for you and your employees, your options will be extremely limited. Many pension providers won’t want to work with you if you leave it less than 6 months before your staging date, as they may not have enough time to assess and implement a plan in time. For employers who had less than 50 employees on the PAYE scheme as at April 2012, your staging date will not be until April 2015 or later, but we are now in 2014 and so it’s time to start planning right now.

The first thing to do is know your staging date. All employers have been written to with their staging date, but you can find this by keying your PAYE reference number in The Pensions Regulator website. This website has all the information and advice you need to help you make a plan for auto enrolment, give you an expectation of your costs as an employer and make sure you are fully compliant. They suggest you start planning 18 months before your staging date.

The second thing you need to do is seek advice and assistance from a good pension advisor. They can help you decide the best course of action, help you choose the best pension provider for you and your employees and help you implement your chosen pension plan. They can tell you how much your employer contributions are likely to cost you, so you can budget for this in time. Of course, all this advice will come at cost, so please bear that in mind.