The Check Employment Status for Tax (CEST) tool can be used to help ascertain if a worker should be classified as employed or self-employed for tax purposes in both the private and public sector.

The service provides HMRC’s view if IR35 legislation applies to a particular engagement and whether a worker should pay tax through PAYE. The service also helps determine if the off-payroll working in the public sector rules apply to a public sector engagement.

The software can be used to check the employment status of:

• a worker providing services,
• a person or organisation hiring a worker; or
• an agency placing a worker.

HMRC has said that it will stand by the result given unless a compliance check finds the information provided was not accurate. HMRC will not stand by the results of contrived arrangements and those designed to get a particular outcome from the service. HMRC are clear that this would be treated as evidence of deliberate non-compliance and could result in higher penalties.

The service is anonymous, and the results are not stored online. However, the results can be printed and held for your own records. If any changes take place to the workers role their status should be reassessed.

If you have staff that have been called up to serve on a jury, then you must allow them the necessary time off. You can ask them to request to delay their jury service if their absence would seriously harm your business. Your employee would need to agree to this request and would need to provide written evidence explaining why a delay has been requested. The request to delay jury service can only be made once in a 12-month period, and the employee must say on the jury summons when they will be available.

Whilst employers must provide time off to allow for jury service, there is no legal requirement to pay employees whilst they are serving.

However, the employee can continue to be paid as normal. If this is the case, the employer cannot reclaim money paid to the employee or that the business has lost during the jury service.

If an employer does not pay their employee, then they can claim a loss of earnings allowance from the court. The employer will need to prepare a certificate of loss of earnings for their employee. This form comes together with the jury service letter. 

Employers can also decide to top up the ‘loss of earnings allowance’ by subtracting the court allowance from their employee’s usual take-home pay.

According to proposals set out in a government policy paper, the revised rates for statutory maternity pay (SMP), statutory adoption pay (SAP), statutory paternity pay (SPP), statutory shared parental pay (ShPP), statutory parental bereavement pay (SPBP) and statutory sick pay (SSP) for tax year 2022/23 are to be as follows:

• the standard weekly rates of SMP, SAP, SPP, ShPP and SPBP will increase from £151.97 to £156.66 (or 90% of the employee’s weekly earnings if that amount is lower than the statutory rate) – it is assumed this will be for payment weeks commencing on or after Sunday, 3 April 2022
• the prescribed weekly rate of maternity allowance (MA) will increase from £151.97 to £156.66 (or 90% of the individual’s weekly earnings if that amount is lower than the statutory rate)
• the weekly rate of SSP will increase from £96.35 to £99.35 from 6 April 2022.

In addition, the amount of the earnings threshold, below which employees do not qualify for SMP, SAP, SPP, ShPP, SPBP and SSP, is to rise from £120 to £123 per week.

The government has published its response to its consultation on making COVID-19 vaccination a condition of deployment for frontline workers in health and social care settings in England and has confirmed that it will now bring forward regulations to implement a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination requirement. The regulations will cover all those who have direct, face-to-face contact with service users, including doctors, nurses, dentists, domiciliary care workers, porters, receptionists, cleaners, volunteers, agency workers and trainees (unless they are exempt). The requirement will apply across the Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulated health and social care sector, whether they are publicly or privately funded.

This means health and social care workers will need to have received a full course of COVID-19 vaccination in order to continue to be deployed. Some individuals will be exempt from the regulations:

• those under the age of 18
• those who are clinically exempt from COVID-19 vaccination
• those who have taken part or are currently taking part in a clinical trial for a COVID-19 vaccine
• those who do not have direct, face to face contact with a service user, for example, those providing care remotely, such as through triage or telephone consultations, or managerial staff working in sites apart from patient areas
• those providing care as part of a shared lives agreement.

The requirement will come into force in the spring, subject to the passage of the regulations through Parliament. There will be a 12-week grace period between the regulations being made and coming into force to allow those who have not yet been vaccinated to have both doses. Enforcement would begin from 1 April 2022, subject to Parliamentary approval.

The requirement will only cover COVID-19 vaccinations, not flu vaccinations.

As part of the Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021, the government has confirmed that it will continue to meet 95% of the apprenticeship training costs for employers who do not pay the Apprenticeship Levy and it will deliver several apprenticeship system improvements for all employers. These include:

• an enhanced recruitment service by May 2022 for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), helping them hire new apprentices 
• supporting flexible apprenticeship training models to ensure that apprenticeship training continues to meet the needs of employers. By April 2022, the government will consider changes to the provider payment profiles aimed at giving employers more choice over how the apprenticeship training is delivered, and explore the streamlining of existing additional employer support payments so that they go directly to employers
• introducing a return-on-investment tool in October 2022 to ensure employers can see the benefits apprentices create in their business.

The government has also confirmed the extension of the £3,000 apprentice hiring incentive payment for employers until 31 January 2022.