Payroll has a significant impact on the UK economy

National Payroll Week, held last week, takes place every year between 5 and 9 September.  It was established to raise the profile and awareness of payroll in the UK which, by definition, refers to the process by which employees receive their salary.  

It also aims to provide payroll professionals with a celebration week to highlight that they do far more than just 'push a button' and can greatly benefit organisations through strategic decision making relating to overall reward and remuneration.

Payroll has a significant impact on the UK economy, contributing approximately £4.5 billion which is collected through income tax and National Insurance.

Irwin Mitchell’s Court of Protection team regularly utilise payroll as we employ and manage large care packages on behalf of our clients. Payroll collectively is one of the largest items of expenditure for many of our clients and comes with many helpful benefits which are summarised below.  

Budget forecasting 

Payroll packages provide a useful forecasting tool to plan for future staff costs and budgeting. For example, hypothetical figures can be entered to calculate the exact cost of employing a potential new support worker, or the cost of introducing pay rises across a care team. Irwin Mitchell colleagues utilise these predicted costs to accurately manage client’s expenditure and to make informed decisions in relation to the affordability of a care package.

Improved accuracy and a more cost effective service

Court of Protection clients often have complex needs, and have several support workers providing 'around the clock' care to meet these needs. Arranging payments to individual support workers would be a time-consuming task if this had to be solely managed by a Paralegal within the team. Instead, utilising Payroll streamlines most of the work. Members of the care team submit their timesheets to payroll who review these and highlight any mistakes or discrepancies with the individual, only asking file handlers to clarify when necessary. The invoices are sent to Irwin Mitchell’s Court of Protection team who then review the invoice against the budget, and settle the balance on the client’s behalf.

These tasks are time sensitive as payroll need to ensure that support workers are paid before month-end. Payroll is proactive in chasing timesheets so that they are submitted on time, and preventing payday being missed. Payroll is useful to Court of Protection clients as it is the most time efficient and cost-effective route of managing payment of the care team.

Pensions 

By working with payroll, support workers are auto-enrolled with partner pension providers. These providers liaise directly with payroll to ensure that the correct pension contributions are made to support workers on behalf of each client. This is useful for Court of Protection clients as it is a more cost effective way of managing pension contributions, and it guarantees compliance with pension regulations.

Staff satisfaction 

Utilising payroll ensures that those enrolled have the correct tax code applied which avoids support workers paying the incorrect amount of tax to HMRC and then owing what could be a large sum to HMRC. Furthermore, holiday entitlement is also automatically generated through payroll, which reduces the scope of human error.

By ensuring the matters above are dealt with through payroll, staff satisfaction in these areas are maintained which in turn positively impacts the quality of care provided to Court of Protection clients.

Find out more about Irwin Mitchell's expertise in supporting clients at our dedicated Court of Protection section

National Payroll Week was established in the UK by the CIPP in 1998 to celebrate the payroll profession and to give it the recognition it deserves.”