FCS Briefing: Childcare Tax Relief from home working exit pay and pensions annual allowance

FCS Briefing:
• Child care during Covid
• Tax Relief During Home
Working
• Public Sector Exit Pay Cap
• Pensions Annual Allowance

26 October 2020

As time goes on and we are moving from the emergency Covid response period during the spring and summer into a period of “the new normal” where we are working under the medium term impacts there have been some further clarifications on terms and conditions.

Child Care
There has been an update to the Covid FAQs on the NHS Employers website relating to childcare.
These can be found at: https://www.nhsemployers.org/covid19/staff-terms-and-conditions/staff-terms-and-conditions-faqs/pay#Caring

They cover the following situations as a result of children returning to school:

What do we pay staff whose children are unable to attend school, nursery or childcare as a result of closures, or because they have been sent home to self-isolate, or have COVID-19 symptoms?
a. Where a child has a suspected case or confirmed case of COVID-19 and there is a government requirement for the employee to self-isolate
b. Where a child is sent home due to a COVID-19 case in their bubble and there is no government requirement for the employee to self-isolate.

Tax Relief for (enforced) home working

If you are required to work from home (for any reason, but very apposite to the Covid situation) HMRC have simplified the process for applying for a modest amount of tax relief.

See: https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/working-at-home

Public Sector Exit Payments Cap

The government has been pushing towards a statutory cap on exit payments (e.g. redundancy or MARS payments) within the public sector since 2015. Although the primary enabling legislation was in the Small Business Enterprise & Employment Act 2015 the enacting secondary regulations had several false starts – things like Brexit got in the way.

The regulations, which apply across the UK, have now been passed by parliament (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1122/contents/made). Accordingly the “The Restriction of Public Sector Exit Payments Regulations 2020” come into force on 4th November. These will supersede the Agenda for Change Terms & Conditions para 16.8 (England) which contractually caps redundancy payments at £160k.

Members involved in organisational change will need to take the implementation of the cap
into account.

Pensions Annual Allowance
For the attention of members who think they may be affected by exceeding the pension
contributions annual allowance for 2020-2021 NHS Employers have recently released a ready
reckoner and demonstration webinar.
Go to: https://www.nhsemployers.org/news/2020/10/nhspensions-ready-reckoner-webinar-recording

M Cornes & G Lester
FCS