| HR & EMPLOYMENT LAW
Jackie Le Poidevin, Editor-in-Chief, HR Adviser |
Discover the New Acas Guidance on Carer’s Leave
Acas has published online guidance on the new right for employees to take up to 1 week’s leave each year to give or arrange care for a dependant with a long-term care need. The guidance wasn’t available when your April HR Adviser Special Issue on the recent reforms to employment law went to print, so I wanted to pull out the key points that have now been clarified.
What Can Carer’s Leave be Used for?
Acas gives these examples of when an employee could use carer’s leave:
- To take their disabled child to a hospital appointment.
- To move their parent who has dementia into a care home.
- To accompany a housebound dependant on a day trip.
- To provide meals and company for an elderly neighbour while their main carer is away with work for the day.
An employee doesn’t have to give you evidence of their dependant’s care needs. It’s therefore easy to imagine abuse of the right to carer’s leave, with an employee who reads this guidance promptly claiming they need a day off to help out their elderly neighbour. However, statutory carer’s leave is unpaid, which should reduce this risk.
If you want to offer paid carer’s leave, you can set your own eligibility rules. You might, for example, restrict paid time off to employees whose spouse, partner, child or parent has a long-term care need. If an employee wanted time off for someone else who relies on them for care, the leave would be unpaid.
You can also take disciplinary action if you have proof an employee has misled you – perhaps if a colleague spots them taking part in a sporting event when they claimed they would be spending the day with their neighbour.
How Much Leave Can Variable-hours Employees Take?
Casual workers don’t have the right to take carer’s leave. However, if a member of your team has ‘employee’ status but works a different number of hours each week or for only part of the year (e.g. during term time), the guidance clarifies how you work out how much carer’s leave they can take. It says you:
- Add up the total hours they worked in the previous 12 months, including any holiday or family-related leave.
- Divide that total by 52 weeks (or by the number of weeks they’ve worked if they’ve worked for you for less than a year).
The guidance gives this example:
| Example |
| Sam works variable hours. In the previous 12 months, working back from the date the leave would start, he worked 780 hours in total. 780 divided by 52 is 15 hours. He can take up to 15 hours of carer’s leave. |
What if an Employee Cares for More than one Dependant?
In this case, they can still only take 1 week of carer’s leave. But they can use the week for more than one dependant.
How Do the Notice Requirements Work?
The guidance includes a helpful table setting out the minimum notice employees need to give before taking carer’s leave. For example, an employee has to give:
- 3 days’ notice to take half a day to 1 day of leave.
- 4 days’ notice to take 1.5 to 2 days.
- 12 days’ notice if they work 6 days a week and want to take their full 6-day entitlement in one go.
It also points out that if an employee needs to take time off at short notice to care for a dependant, they could take emergency dependants leave instead.
| HEALTH & SAFETY
Emma Lampka, Editorial Board Member, Health & Safety Adviser and Risk Assessment & Compliance |
New! HSE Clarifies RIDDOR Guidance: What You Need to Know
This week, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released new guidance on the reporting of accidents and incidents under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR). There are no changes to the legal requirements or to what you have to do to report an incident, but the new guidance helps clarify how and when you should submit a report under RIDDOR.
The HSE’s update is in response to feedback gathered from stakeholders who felt the guidance is unclear in some places, especially around reporting occupational disease and dangerous occurrences. It was also felt that the online reporting forms were hard to follow.
The RIDDOR regulations have always required that only ‘responsible persons’ including employers, the self-employed and people in control of work premises, should submit reports under RIDDOR.
Below is a reminder and some examples of what is required in the RIDDOR regulations reporting requirements.
- Injuries (reportable injuries)g. fatalities, specified, reportable injuries such as fractures (other than to fingers, thumbs and toes), amputation of the arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe, over 7-day incapacitation of a worker and non-fatal accidents to people other than workers.
- Occupational diseases should be reported as soon as they are diagnosed. Examples include carpel tunnel syndrome, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome and occupational asthma. These also include occupational cancers such as mesothelioma and cancers related to silica dust.
- Dangerous occurrences are those which arise out of, or in connection with, work and could risk harm to others. Examples include scaffold collapse or a release of a substance hazardous to health. This can include gas incidents where distributors, fillers, importers and suppliers of flammable gas must report incidents in connection with that gas if someone has died, lost consciousness or been taken to hospital for treatment.
Understand the Key Changes
The main changes to the guidance that you need to know are:
- There are more links to guidance on the various types of reportable incidents to help you decide whether a report is required.
- Clarity on who should and should not report under RIDDOR.
- Improved guidance on what is meant by a ‘work-related’ accident.
- Information on when an occupational disease is not reportable.
- Increased clarity on when an ‘over 7-day’ absence should be reported.
The main changes to the online reporting form include:
- The questions have been re-ordered to bring questions about the ‘severity of injuries’ to the front end of the form. This will help you quickly decide if your incident is reportable.
- Pop-up messages will redirect you if the incident is not reportable.
- Improved guidance throughout the forms to make them easier to use.
- Injured or affected people now have an increased number of options when completing the gender field.
| PAYROLL
Sarah Bradford, Editor-in-Chief, Pay & Benefits Adviser |
How to Manage Payroll for Scottish and Welsh Taxpayers
Income tax is partially devolved to Scotland and Wales. The Scottish Income set the income tax rates that apply to the non-savings non-dividend income of Scottish taxpayers. Likewise the Welsh Assembly set the rates applying to Welsh taxpayers. From a payroll perspective, tax for Scottish taxpayers should be deducted at the Scottish rates and that for Welsh taxpayers at the Welsh rates. An employee’s tax code will indicate whether they are a Scottish or a Welsh taxpayer.
Scottish Taxpayers
A person who lives in Scotland pays Scottish Income Tax. Where a person moves to or from Scotland, they will pay Scottish income tax if they live in Scotland longer than they live anywhere else in the UK in the tax year in question. Where an employee moves to or from Scotland, it is important that they advise HMRC of their new address promptly so that they are taxed at the right rate.
It should be noted that it does not matter where the employer is based, only where the employee lives. For example, if an employee lives in Aberdeen and works remotely for an employer based in Manchester, the employee will be a Scottish taxpayer. However, an employee living in Carlisle and working in Dumfries would not be a Scottish taxpayer and would pay tax at the rates applying in England and Northern Ireland, despite working for an employer based in Scotland.
As an employer, it’s not up to you to decide whether an employee is a Scottish taxpayer – the employee’s tax code will indicate whether they pay tax at the Scottish rates – tax codes for Scottish taxpayers have an ‘S’ prefix.
The rates of income tax applying to the non-savings non-dividend income of Scottish taxpayers are different to those applying to the rest of the UK. The rates applying for the 2024/25 tax year are set out in the table below.
| Income Tax Rates Bands of Taxable Income 2024/25: Scottish Taxpayers | ||
| Rate | Band | |
| Starter rate | 19% | £1 to £2,306 |
| Basic rate | 20% | £2,307 to £13,991 |
| Intermediate rate | 21% | £13,992 to £31,092 |
| Higher rate | 42% | £31,093 to £62,430 |
| Advanced rate | 45% | £62,430 to £125,140 |
| Top rate | 48% | Over £125,140 |
Unlike the tax rates, the personal allowance for Scottish taxpayers is the same as for the rest of the UK.
A Scottish taxpayer who is entitled to the basic personal allowance of £12,570 for 2024/25 will have a tax code of S1257L. Likewise, a Scottish taxpayer in receipt of the marriage allowance will have a tax code of S1383M.
The S prefix also applies in relation to special tax codes and you may also come across the following tax codes for Scottish taxpayers. In each case, the ‘S’ indicates that the taxpayer is a Scottish taxpayer.
- S0T: the employee’s personal allowance has been used or the employee has started a new job and the employer does not have the details to give them a tax code.
- SBR: all income from the job or pension is taxed at the Scottish basic rate.
- SD0: all income from the job or pension is taxed at the Scottish intermediate rate.
- SD1: all income from the job or pension is tax at the Scottish higher rate.
- SD2: all income from the job or pension is taxed at the Scottish advanced rate.
- SD3: all income from the job or pension is taxed at the Scottish top rate.
Codes SBR, SD0, SD1, SD2 and SD3 usually apply where the employee has more than one job or pension.
Welsh Taxpayers
A Welsh taxpayer is someone who lives in Wales. Welsh taxpayer’s tax codes have a ‘C’ prefix, so that a Welsh taxpayer entitled to the personal allowance of £12.570 for 2024/25 will have a code of C1257L.
The Welsh rate of tax is found by deducting 10% from the rate applying to the rest of the UK excluding Scotland and adding the rate set by the Welsh Assembly. As this is set at 10% for 2024/25, the rates of income tax applying to Welsh taxpayers are the same as for those living in England and Northern Ireland. Consequently, a basic rate of 20% applies to the first £37,700 of taxable income, the next £87,440 of taxable income is taxed at 40% and taxable income in excess of £125,140 is taxed at 45%.
To ensure that Scottish and Welsh taxpayers are taxed at the right rates, it is important that their tax code is entered correctly in the payroll software, including the ‘S’ or ‘C’ prefix.