Employer and Jury Duty

pramsay13

One of our employees is on Jury duty this week. As an employer we can't afford to pay anything which is legally fine as the person can claim, but we've also had to hire an agency worker to cover the work which obviously costs more.
Can an employer claim expenses as well?
We're going down the route of advising people to defer it in future, but didn't spot that in time and this is the first time it has come up.

glider3560

HMCS wrote:

Will the Court pay for someone to temporarily cover my employee’s duties whilst they are on jury service?
No. As above, the Court does not pay compensation to third parties. However, some companies’ insurance policies include provision for employees’ absence for jury service.

http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/docs/infoabout/juryservice/faq_employers.pdf

McKneff

pramsay13 wrote: »

One of our employees is on Jury duty this week. As an employer we can't afford to pay anything which is legally fine as the person can claim, but we've also had to hire an agency worker to cover the work which obviously costs more.
Can an employer claim expenses as well?
We're going down the route of advising people to defer it in future, but didn't spot that in time and this is the first time it has come up.

Why would you want help to pay the agency worker.
Pay them the money that you are not going to pay your employee.
Everything balances out then.

Im not sure that you can refuse to pay your employee so I am going to have a look at the website too.

glider3560

McKneff wrote: »

Im not sure that you can refuse to pay your employee so I am going to have a look at the website too.

What happens is the employer doesn't pay the employee but instead signs a form/certificate/something which states how much the employee would have earnt. This form is then submitted to the court along with any receipts for travel expenses. The court then pays the salary for the missed days directly to the employee.

McKneff

thanks Glider, I have done Jury service twice but for the life of me i couldnt remember much about the payment side. I think that my employer paid me.

pinkshoes

My employer paid me during my 3+ weeks on Jury service, but if they didn't, then I could claim up to £63 (ish) per day for the first two weeks, and then I think the allowance went to double that for subsequent weeks. Obviously I would have had to show my wage slip to prove my actual loss...

pramsay13

McKneff wrote: »

Why would you want help to pay the agency worker.
Pay them the money that you are not going to pay your employee.
Everything balances out then.

Unfortunately an agency worker costs more than our normal salary so we will still be out of pocket, and we don't have to pay the worker as they can claim loss of earnings.

McKneff

It may not be that simple, there is a cap on a daily rate of earnings paid by the Jury Service. Lots of people do lose out just because of that.

If the employee earns say £90 a day and the cap is £63 the employee is down
by £27 a day, times that by 10 days its a lot of money. So its no wonder a lot of people try to get out of doing it.

Savvy_Sue

I'm not sure how deferring it would help, they may get called up again and you're still in the same situation.

trickytrolleys

pramsay13 wrote: »

One of our employees is on Jury duty this week. As an employer we can't afford to pay anything which is legally fine as the person can claim, but we've also had to hire an agency worker to cover the work which obviously costs more.
Can an employer claim expenses as well?
We're going down the route of advising people to defer it in future, but didn't spot that in time and this is the first time it has come up.

not much of a business then is it

rupee99

trickytrolleys wrote: »

not much of a business then is it

That is a rather crass comment made upon very little information.

An agency worker will cost a premium, probably of around 25/30% on the hourly wage of the employee. The worker is also likely to be less proficient at the job than the, experienced, employee on jury service. Against that there will be a saving on employers National Insurance Contributions of 12.8% on daily wages above c.£20 depending on the pay interval and length of absence.

May not be much of a business to you, but for some small business people the difference between survival or not.