Employer National Insurance Changes
From April 2025, the threshold at which you will need to pay employers National Insurance for your employees will be reducing from £9,100 per year, to just £5,000 per year. The rate of employer's national insurance will also increase from 13.8% above the threshold, to 15%. You should ensure that your payroll software is updated to reflect these changes from April 2025 onwards.
National Minimum Wage hourly rates - from April 2025 to March 2026
- National Living Wage (21+) £12.21
- 18-20 Year Old Rate £10
- 16-17 Year Old Rate £7.55
- Apprentice Rate £7.55
- Accommodation Offset £10.66
Please note that the Diocese has a policy, that where possible all employees are paid the Real Living Wage which will be £12.60 per hour in the UK (£13.85 in London) from April 2025.
Another thing to note is that if you are paying employees at the National Minimum Wage, and they regularly work overtime, for which they receive time off in lieu, that they must take that time off in lieu within the pay period that they worked the overtime. For example, if your employee is paid weekly and their contracted hours are 20, this would mean that they are paid £244.20 gross pay per week (£12.21 x 20 hours - £244.20). However, if they physically worked 30 hours that week and accrued TOIL for 10 of those hours, but didn’t take them back in that same week, then HMRC would take the total amount paid £244.20 and divide it by 30 hours, giving a “real” hourly rate of £8.14 per hour, which is far below the minimum wage. For this reason, you should ensure that your employees take back any overtime that they have worked, within the pay period, whether that is a weekly or monthly pay period, as HMRC would still calculate this in the same way.
Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act – From April 2025
The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 came into force from April 2025. This new act provides parents with a right of "up to" 12 weeks’ leave and pay when their baby requires neonatal care in addition to existing parental leave entitlements. The general requirement is to support parents or those who will have responsibility for bringing up a baby who has or will receive seven days of medical or palliative care within the first 28 days of birth. The length of neonatal leave will be dependent on how long the baby receives this care for. This additional time will always be added to the end of any other parental leave, such as maternity leave. The qualifying conditions for leave and payment are in line with those for Statutory Maternity leave and Statutory Maternity pay and will be paid at the same rate. The entitlement is the same for those who are taking Paternity pay, however this must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby being admitted to the Neonatal unit. The template policy can be downloaded by clicking here Neonatal Care and Leave Policy for Parishes, or you can find it in the "during employment" section of the Parish HR support website.
Sexual Harassment at work - 26th October 2024
As of 26th October 2024, the labour government passed a law relating to sexual harassment in the workplace. They have said that employers need to take ALL reasonable steps to prevent Sexual Harassment in the workplace. This law will not just be governed by employment law, where an employment tribunal could be raised, but is also being covered by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which means it would then be a criminal offense if employers don’t take steps to prevent Sexual Harassment in the workplace, and that these cases could then be tried in a criminal court rather than a usual employment tribunal. Compensation claims in this court can be up to £150,000 per case which is pretty frightening, so I would suggest that you train staff and volunteers and keep the training up to date every 18 months, and have some sort of training/written agreement for third parties who come into contact with your staff or volunteers frequently, such as a cleaner or organ player etc if they are in a self-employed capacity. Very important to note, is that the employer or head of a company can be held personally liable, not just for the compensation claim, but also in worse case scenarios could face a jail sentence themselves for up to 6 months.
Below is a fact sheet on sexual harassment which you can amend, along with a poster that you could display in your office, visible to all staff. I would also recommend that you give any contractors a copy of the fact sheet prior to commencing work for you so that they understand what sexual harassment is and have a written contract with them in relation to the work they are doing for you and their agreement in terms of conduct, which they can sign.
You can also sign your employees up to do free eLearning on Sexual Harassment by going to the Elearning for Parish Staff and Volunteers page.
Mental Health at work
In the last year, the Health and Safety executive have been given more powers to look out for employees’ mental health as well as physical health. Essentially the Health and Safety Executive can send representatives to your workplace to check on whether you are being health and safety compliant from a physical and mental health perspective.
Breaches of health and safety could also amount to a criminal offense and as with breaches of the equality act, it is the head of the organisation which could be held personally liable for fines/compensation and potential jail sentence. This is why it is so important that your organisation is fully compliant on both physical and mental health.
For physical health, it should be a case of you checking that nothing poses a risk and you should have a risk assessment done on your buildings in relation to potential risks your employees may face, including mental health risks. You can use this link to get the template that the HSE have provided Risk assessment: Template and examples - HSE
For mental health, you should ensure you conduct stress risk assessments with your staff and have personalised risk assessments for each person. You can use this link to access the stress risk assessments from the HSE website as they have provided templates for you to use Work related stress - Tools and templates (hse.gov.uk)
At the Diocesan office, we have now created personalised risk assessments for each member of staff, taking into consideration a number of factors that could increase their risks of doing everyday work-related tasks, such as disability, age, neurodivergence, menopause etc. The risk assessments contain information about physical risks as well as mental health or disability risks. This will ensure each employee is supported in accordance with their specific needs. If you would like to find out more about setting this up for your employees, please contact Simone Smith, HR Manager on ParishHR@Coventry.Anglican.org