April showers us with new laws and new figures for HR matters.
1 April 2018
The new national minimum wage rates came into force:
National Living Wage (per hour) Age 25+ £7.83
Standard adult rate (per hour) Age 21+ £7.38
Development rate (per hour) Age 18-20 £5.90
Young workers rate (per hour) Age 16-17 £4.20
Apprentice rate (per hour) £3.70
Accommodation offset limit (maximum daily deduction from NMW) £7.00
Statutory Paternity Pay is at the lower of 90% salary or £145.18 for two weeks.
Statutory Maternity Pay and Statutory Adoption Pay are at 90% of salary for the first 6 weeks and at a maximum of £145.18 for 33 weeks.
Shared Parental Pay is at £145.18 for 39 weeks less any weeks spent by the mother or primary adopter in receipt of SMP, SAP or Maternity Allowance.
4 April 2018
The deadline for relevant private sector employers to report on their 2017 Gender Pay Gap.
5 April 2018
The second snapshot date for private sector employers with 250 or more employees for the Gender Pay Gap reporting obligation (it’s 31st March for public sector bodies).
6 April 2018
Statutory Sick Pay goes to £92.05 per week.
The minimum employer contribution under auto-enrolment increases to 2% with the total minimum contribution from employers and employees being 5%. This will rise again from 6 April 2019 to 3% and 8% respectively.
For all terminations on or after this date all payments connected to notice pay (whether or not they are made in connection with a payment in lieu of notice provision in the contract) will be treated as earnings, cannot be paid as part of the £30,000 exemption, and will be subject to income tax and class 1 NICS. This may mean that your template settlement agreements need to be reviewed.
The cap for a week’s pay rises from £489 to £508 for dismissals on or after this date, making the maximum Basic Award / Statutory Redundancy Payment £15,240.
The higher cap on the Compensatory Award for ordinary unfair dismissal rises from £80,541 to £83,682 subject to the lower cap of annual actual salary. (In some cases of course there is no cap on the compensatory award).
The Tribunal can award an Additional Award if an employer fails to re-engage or re-employ an unfairly dismissed employee. The top and bottom of this award will now be £13,208 and £26,416 respectively.
The penalty per employee for an unlawful inducement to move away from collective bargaining increases to £4,059.
The daily guarantee payment for periods of lay-off or short-time working rises to a princely £28 (subject to a maximum of five days or £140 in any three months).