Employment and payroll changes to be aware of

September 27th 2024

Whilst we now have a new UK government; employers, payroll and employment professionals should still be aware that there are several pieces of primary employment legislation due to come into force later this year. Most of these will have an impact on payroll. Partner Joanne Gibson outlines this new legislation and what it will mean for employers.

In the early days of this new parliamentary session, employers should keep an eye on the commencement of the following new Acts:

The Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 (the ‘Tipping Act’)

The Tipping Act provides that employers must ensure workers are allocated tips and service charges fairly and transparently. Employers will be supported by a non-statutory Code of Practice to help them develop allocation policies and procedures. This was approved by the UK Parliament on 24 May 2024. However, ‘commencement regulations’ have not been passed to bring the Code of Practice of the provisions of the Act into force. This is now expected on 1 October 2024.

Statutory Neonatal Leave and Pay Act 2023

This Act provides an employee with the unconditional right to leave and a conditional right to pay, where a child receives neonatal care in the first 28 days of life. Where the employee meets all the eligibility conditions, they will be entitled to an additional 12 weeks of leave (and pay) on top of any entitlement to other statutory leave such as maternity, paternity and so on.

HMRC confirms this take effect from April 2025, however, it has not issued guidance for software developers. There is not much time left for such an important new statutory payment, and this is very much dependent on it being facilitated by payroll software.

In summary
As illustrated clearly with the topic of maternity leave, employment law and payroll are intrinsically linked. The right to leave is an employment right, but the right to be paid requires other legislation. In the early days of this new parliamentary session, employers should keep an eye on the commencement of these pieces of new and important legislation.

The Payroll team would be more than happy to discuss any of the topics or other payroll questions, please do get in touch.

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