Rocketpaye Newsletter - No.4 - January 2024

NEWSLETTER | 04

JANUARY 2024

The

Accreditation Addition!

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CONTENTS 03 A WORD FROM OUR DIRECTOR 04 SAFEREC CERTIFICATION 05 PROFESSIONAL PASSPORT ACCREDITATION 07

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

09 GET IN TOUCH

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A WORD FROM OUR DIRECTOR New Year, New Us… kind of. Rocket Paye are back with a vengeance in 2024. All of our market leading services remain, BUT we have additions to the Rocket Paye brand that will help to demonstrate our commitment to you. The team are energised, the business is growing and new clients are onboarding but the real game changer… our brand new market leading accreditations.

That’s right, we said we would and we did. Rocket Paye are now Saferec Certified and Professional Passport Accredited, demonstrating our commitment to compliance from both onboarding worker stage, to actually physically paying the workers. With the horror stories that have come from our industry in the last 18months, we have found it super important, to give our clients full transparency from independent third party accreditation bodies. This leaves us in a position where you can now be 100% sure, that Rocket Paye operate, to the best code of conduct there is and in line with current legislation.

Away from the compliance side of things, we are very excited to be included into some major PSL’s, with well renowned recruitment agencies of all sizes. The team are doing an excellent job of getting Rocket out into market and taking up some market share. We are also expanding the team both here in the UK across a number of internal roles but also in our compliance team who are based in sunny Cape Town!

As always, we will be ever present in the market, keeping our ear to the ground on all the latest things in the market, that we feel you need to know!

Alex Hough MANAGING DIRECTOR

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SAFEREC CERTIFICATION WHAT IS SAFEREC CERTIFICATION? The SafeRec Certification is a Certification for umbrella companies, specifically tailored for recruitment agencies and their clients.

This certification offers real-time auditing of umbrella companies, guaranteeing compliance and upholding ethical standards.

By integrating legal assessments and cuttingedge technology, SafeRec Certification assures compliant and ethical practices, benefiting workers, agencies, and the entire supply chain. This proactive approach not only ensures adherence to regulations but also fosters a culture of transparency and trust within the recruitment sector.

WHAT DOES SAFEREC DO? ssess contracts, processes and A policies used by the Certified Umbrella Company Audit in real-time each week, all payslips generated by the Certified Umbrella Company HMRC cross check with Real Time Information (RTI) reports as well as the Umbrella’s HMRC tax account Communicate with a comprehensive audit each month to all umbrella companies clients

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PROFESSIONAL PASSPORT ACCREDITATION WHAT IS PROFESSIONAL PASSPORT ACCREDITATION? Professional Passport is completely independent of any provider, agency or end client and as such are in a unique position to objectively advise each sector of the marketplace.

Their compliance standards go further and are designed to not only ensure that providers that are recommended operate compliantly within HMRC tax rules but also across the many other areas of legislation that apply. PP require the highest level of transparency in their operations to ensure workers are clear on any arrangements entered in to.

PP are continually reviewing and updating our standards to keep our providers at the forefront of operational standards and driving best practice across the sector. Furthermore, often

legislation does not change but how this is interpreted and enforced can so we ensure any enforcement changes are reflected in the compliance standards.

These high standards have meant that PP are the only compliance accreditation that is supported by blue chip insurance and therefore we will never compromise our standards.

WHAT DO PROFESSIONAL PASSPORT DO? As well as PP’s ongoing formal assessments of their providers, they receive continual market intelligence from all of their members. If any information was provided that suggested something was not right they always act immediately and fully investigate. ➤

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This market intelligence also helps keep up fully up of what we are looking for, merely that they are looking at their current offering. This gives PP a to date with any new ‘have I got a great idea for clear understanding of that provider’s offering and you’ offerings entering the market. knowledge.

This complete picture also helps PP with new This work ensures PP accurately highlight any enquiries for compliance reviews as they are shortfalls and are able to fully advise a provider. often already aware of the provider and their At the end of this offerings; some of these process the provider conversations can be “WHERE PP REVIEW A will understand our quite short. compliance standards Where PP review a PROVIDER THEY WILL APPLY and once any remedial provider they will apply THEIR COMPREHENSIVE action has been taken, PP their comprehensive RANGE OF STANDARDS AND would be able to carry range of standards and CHECKS ACROSS ALL THE out a review. checks across all the OFFERINGS AVAILABLE TO The compliance review offerings available to ENSURE THAT IF YOU, OUR documents their processes ensure that if you, our and procedures across member, recommend MEMBER, RECOMMEND A all their offerings as a worker to a provider WORKER TO A PROVIDER well as obtaining you can do so safe in the YOU CAN DO SO SAFE IN THE supporting evidence knowledge that PP have KNOWLEDGE THAT PP HAVE that demonstrates a signed everything off SIGNED EVERYTHING OFF” robust and consistent this is not the case with application of those other compliance reviews processes. on the market.

Whilst PP do carry out periodical checks on the PP are often asked why we do not publish our detailed compliance standards; the answer is quite financial standings of providers they do not have any day to day control of their finances and simple: therefore recommend that members carry out their When PP receive an enquiry from a provider own financial due diligence on providers they are their first step is to spend a day with them to considering. understand what they do. PP provide no details

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INDUSTRY INSIGHTS HOLIDAY PAY REFORM – EFFECTIVE FROM APRIL 1 The law is changing. If you engage individuals who work irregular hours, or who work for only part of the year, you need to review your method of calculating annual leave entitlement and holiday pay for holiday years commencing on or after 1 April 2024.

Annual leave and holiday pay are two distinct items. For irregular hours or part year workers there will be one method of calculating annual leave entitlement.

However, there will be two different methods of calculating and paying holiday pay and you can use either or both. The method that you choose will alter the way that you calculate the holiday pay due to your employees.

You need to; 1. D ecide which holiday pay calculation(s) you will use and when it needs to be implemented 2. C heck that your payroll software can cope with your requirements 3. D ecide how the change will be implemented – how will this alter what you currently do?

4. R eview and update contract clauses, annual leave policy, employee handbook, pay slips and Key Information Documents 5. C ommunicate with your workforce to explain the changes ➤

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THE TECHNICAL BIT The Working Time Regulations 1998 have been amended to change the method of calculating statutory holiday entitlement and holiday pay for workers who work irregular hours or for only part of the year.

An Irregular Hours Worker is defined as somebody whose paid hours of work are wholly or mostly variable (Regulation 15F(1)(a)).

A Part-Year Worker is defined as somebody whose contract of employment requires them to work only part of a year and there are contractual periods of at least one week where the worker is not required to work and for which they are not paid (Regulation 15F(1)(b). Part-year workers may have fixed hours during the periods that they do work.

HOLIDAY PAY CALCULATION The amended Regulations facilitate the calculation of holiday pay in two distinct ways; 1. Advanced holiday pay (Regulation 16A) The amended Regulations now allow employers to pay holiday pay on an advanced basis for irregular hours and part year workers only.

Where an employer wants to implement the use of advanced holiday pay they should

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ensure that the workers’ contracts of employment facilitate this.

Where holiday pay is paid on a advanced basis, it should be calculated as 12.07% of total pay in each pay period. The payment of holiday pay should be shown as a separate and distinct amount on the pay slip in addition to pay for the work done in the pay period.

2. 5 2-week reference period (Regulation 16) If advanced holiday pay is not paid, holiday pay should be calculated based on average pay during the previous 52-week period (unless the worker hasn’t been employed for 52 weeks in which case such shorter period of employment should be used).

If a worker has not been paid during each of the previous 52 weeks, then the employer can go back further to build up data for 52 weeks, up to a limit of a 104 week period.

Data from weeks where the worker did not work but has been paid (e.g. because they were on holiday) should be included in the calculation.

There is a separate calculation which applies where a worker has been on sick or statutory leave during the relevant period.

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