NHS Incorrect wages underpaid but they say they are correct

caverncity

Hello, Asking this question for my daughter. She went back to work last month after maternity leave but the manager didnt tell HR so she only got £100 instead of what I believe to be approx £1700. In the end they sent her a BACS of £1700 but no wage slip. This month her pay is higher as she gets extras for bank holidays etc so was expecting to get around £1900 but she only got £1572 once deductions came out including two months carpark and student loan. When she rang them to tell them it was wrong they said its correct as it was an advance recovery and they have to show it a such which means taxing it at 2.5 months to get the correct figures.
I have used a couple of online salary checkers and on her basic she would have got £1730 last month and this month £1813 not £1572. Can somebody who is clued up on this check the figures for me and see if they are correct. The wage slip is included thanks in advance

chrisbur

You say there was an advance payment of £1700 paid by BACS.
On the payslip there is a figure for Recovery Advance NR for £1860.00
Do you know why the extra £160 was recovered.

What was the £100 paid for on last months payslip?

caverncity

Hello the £100 was maternity pay which ended the month before at 9 MTHS. They paid £100 by mistake so then advanced her £1760 and recovered it on paper on this month's wage slip. Also her student loan deductions are around £55 a month, this month's is £293

chrisbur

caverncity wrote: »

Hello the £100 was maternity pay which ended the month before at 9 MTHS. They paid £100 by mistake so then advanced her £1760 and recovered it on paper on this month's wage slip. Also her student loan deductions are around £55 a month, this month's is £293

The maternity pay would have been paid as gross pay but if it has been included in the £1860.00 Recovery advance it has been deducted from net pay so in affect £20 tax has been paid on this plus a bit of NI. It should be on the left as a minus figure.

Main problem is that the payslip has been done as a single month's wage which has increased NI a bit and student loan a lot, as only one month's allowances have been given.

There are rules relating to NI but will have to check the exact wording for these.
Regarding student loan not sure I have seen anything about this (not something I keep up with these days) but will have a look later tonight if no-one can give an answer would be worth checking with student loan company.

chrisbur

First
As advised the £100 paid in error appears to have been adjusted on the wrong side of the payslip. It is possible that some sort of cumulative adjustment has occurred so to check this if you add up the gross pay from all three payslips and compare that to the Year to date gross bottom left of the payslip showing £6397.28. If they are the same then it has not been corrected and tax and NI have been paid on that £100. If however the figure you get adding up the three payslip gross figures is £6497.28 then the cumulative figures have been corrected.
In the following figures I have assumed that no correction was made.
Second
Looking at the cumulative figures we have £6397.28
There is £4939.92 on payslip 3 and £100 on payslip 2 so that leaves £1457.36 on payslip 1
There would have been about £80 tax deducted from this payslip which would have been refunded on payslip 2
Had the correct figures gone through then this refund would not have been due so once the corrected gross for month 2 was put through in month 3 this refund had to be repaid. This means that the tax for month 3 appears to be £80 higher than would be expected.

In affect that £80 received in month 2 is really part of the pay for month 3

Third
The NI has been calculated as if this is a single month's pay which is wrong.
If the payroll dept refer to the
2019 to 2020: Employer further guide to PAYE and National Insurance contributions
at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cwg2-further-guide-to-paye-and-national-insurance-contributions/2019-to-2020-employer-further-guide-to-paye-and-national-insurance-contributions--3


At section 3.2 Working out National Insurance contributions for employees not paid on their usual payday

The instruction for this is....
"Take the following action if you pay employees on a day other than their usual payday, for example, you bring the payday forward because of a bank holiday or you pay 2 months’ salaries together to employees who submit their timesheets late (mistimed payments).

If the actual date of payment and the usual payday are in the same tax year, treat the early or late payment as if it had been made at its usual time.

Example 1
2 separate weeks’ wages for weeks ending 6 June and 13 June are paid on 13 June. Work out National Insurance contributions separately on each week’s payment."

This has resulted in an over deduction of about £19 in NI

Fourth
As with the NI the student loan has been calculated as if the payment was for one month.
The allowance each month for Plan 1 is £1577
Treating it as one month instead of 2 has meant only 1 allowance was given so increasing the payment to by 9% of £1577 or about £142
Unfortunately I cannot find anything that covers a case like this so to get an answer you may have to contact the student loan office.

Finally
I would suggest trying the payroll dept perhaps someone senior in it to see if they are willing to adjust these £100 on the wrong side, NI and loan figures especially as it was there error that caused this. If not then you would have to consider perhaps union rep if have one or making some sort of official complaint or for the loan speaking to someone at the student loan office and tax/NI to HMRC.
All of these are outside of my experience I am afraid so cannot be any help there.

One final thought seems to be no pension deductions on this payslip is that correct?

caverncity

Many thanks for your help. I have told her to contact someone senior in that department or her manager. Yes I agree they have made deductions as if it was one month. It is their fault but they have told her it's correct. Will see how it pans out and hopefully get sorted.
p.s there is no pension as she opted out on maternity, she is about to opt back in again hence no deductions.

Manxman_in_exile

I'm no payroll expert but chrisbur's analysis looks quite compelling.


I'd only say that I was involved in the implementation of the Electronic Staff Record (the NHS national pay system) in my trust and I'm surprised that a mistake like this would happen - unless it's simply down to an inexperienced or poorly trained pay clerk?


In my trust we had a Payroll Liaison Officer (a very experienced ex-pay clerk) based in our Finance Department and she held weekly clinics to deal with these sort of problems. (She had very lengthy queues outside her office when these clinics were being run!). I would suggest your daughter needs to find out if her trust has such a person.


Failing that, it was part of management's role to support staff in dealing with payroll queries - although that was often just a case of fobbing staff off with advising them to contact the third party payroll provider. If your daughter's pay is in fact correct, the payroll provider ought to be able to explain why. The explanation above by chrisbur gives ammunition to challenge them with.


The union should be able to help too - assuming your daughter is in one.


As an aside, how does your daughter's opting out of the pension affect her reckonable service?


(The NHS may have a different payroll system now - I left six years ago).