Guidance Notes on Appointing & Paying Casual Workers

Forms

1.    Introduction

The information and guidelines which follow are to assist Schools/Departments in operating the procedures for the appointment of Casual Workers and the associated payment procedures. Whilst every attempt has been made to ensure that they are as comprehensive as possible, situations may arise which are not covered. In these circumstances, please contact your HR Advisor.

2.    Authorisations

a)    Appointments

It is the responsibility of Executive Deans/Heads of Department to ensure that the individuals who are appointed as Casual Workers are suitably qualified for the duties involved. All such appointments should, therefore, be authorised by the Executive Dean/Head of Department, or by someone authorised by them to act on his/her behalf.

For casual workers, no “mutuality of obligation” should be established in relation to the work they are asked to do (no mutuality of obligation exists if, after the initial offer, the University is not obliged to offer further work and the worker is not obliged to accept any work offered).  This will ensure that no employment relationship exists between the University and the worker.  However, where a worker regularly works for the University on new or “rolling contracts”, an employment relationship can become established.

For this reason, casual workers should not be employed continuously for lengthy periods of time, and no appointment letters should be issued without prior consultation with Human Resources.

If, given your needs, you feel that it would be more appropriate to engage a temporary member of staff than a casual worker, please contact your HR Advisor.

b)   Payments

You can now submit payments online through the HR Utilities website.  For more information and to be set up to use this facility please contact Jools Rogers, HR Systems Administrator on extension 4569 (j.e.rogers@aston.ac.uk).

All pay documents (form 7B) passed to the Payroll Office for payment must be certified by a signatory approved by the Director of Human Resources to act on their behalf.

Ordinarily, the signatory will be the Executive Dean/Head of Department, but the Dean/Head may wish to nominate another member of staff to do this on their behalf.

The signature of the account holder, if this is not the Executive Dean/Head of Department, will also be required.

A form for submitting a specimen of the Executive Dean/Head of Department's signature, and one other person designated by the Head to act as his/her nominee is attached at Appendix 1.  These forms should be returned to Denise Aldred, Payroll Manager.

It will be the responsibility of Schools/Departments to ensure that full employment costs can be met from the source of funding identified for each appointment.

(Guidance on calculating employment costs is given at Appendix 2)

3.    Payroll Deductions

All payments to Casual Workers will be made through the university payroll, and will be subject to deductions for income tax and national insurance.  No payments will be made until the worker has undergone a successful ‘right to work’ check.  (This check should always take place before any work is undertaken.)

4.    Employed v Self-Employed Status

It is important that Schools/Departments seek advice from Human Resources before entering into commitments with any individual who wishes to be treated as self employed and submit invoices.  The question of whether an individual should be treated as an employee or as self-employed is a complex one and it is difficult to provide a precise or exhaustive set of guidelines. In the event of any doubt Human Resources will determine, in the light of the nature of the work being undertaken, whether a particular job should be treated as employment.  Where it is not possible to resolve the matter in this way, individual cases will be referred to HM Revenue and Customs for a decision.

There are significant implications for the University, and for the employing School/Department, in incorrectly treating individuals as 'self-employed' and failing to operate PAYE and national insurance procedures. The HM Revenue and Customs may recover, from the employer, the tax and National Insurance which the employer should have been collecting from the individual, possibly with interest and penalties, and this can be applied retroactively for six previous years.

For further information please see Appendix 3 – Income Tax Status.

5.    Redundancy Payments

Statutory redundancy payments are payable to employees who have worked for more than two continuous years and the amounts due are based on service and weekly pay. The number of years service is calculated in whole (completed) years and entitlement is calculated for each completed year within age groupings.  Please see Appendix 4 – Statutory Redundancy Pay Calculation Table.

There is an upper limit on the weekly pay that is taken into account which is currently set at £430.

You are advised to take account of these payments in your budget if you continue to engage a casual worker who has accrued more than two years service with the University.  Assistance in the calculation and the administration of redundancy payments is available from your HR Advisor.

6.    Holiday Pay

Casual Workers are entitled, pro-rata, to 5.6 weeks (28 days) paid holiday each year. They are required to take their holiday on days when they are not scheduled to teach or undertake other work. For convenience, proportionate holiday pay, for each period worked, will be paid with salary. This method of payment means that holiday pay will be paid in advance and no further payment will be due at the time when holiday is taken or for payment in lieu.

For these staff holiday pay represents 10.7692% of the basic hourly rate of pay.

In terms of the total hourly rate (which includes holiday pay) the holiday pay can be identified as follows:

Hourly Rate x 0.0972 (ie. 10.7692/110.7692 rounded)

Please bear in mind that in assessing a rate the holiday pay should be considered as an additional entitlement over and above the normal rate for the job.

7.    Pay Rates

Casual Workers are engaged on an occasional or casual basis and are not regularly employed by the university, (including specialist/guest lecturers and various ad-hoc work as required).

They are paid an hourly rate and are only paid for the hours actually worked. The hourly rate includes an entitlement to paid holiday (see above).

It is for the Executive Dean/Head of Department to determine the appropriate hourly rate of pay for any individual but this should reflect the rate that would be paid to a permanent member of staff who was engaged to undertake the same range of duties. Please see the Casual Rates of Pay scale.

Care should be taken to ensure that rates of pay are not below the National Minimum Wage. Details can be found in Appendix 5.

8.    ‘Right to Work’ Checks

Must take place before any work is undertaken as it is now not only a civil offence to knowingly employ a person aged 16 or over who has no permission to work in the United Kingdom, or who works in breach of their conditions of stay in the United Kingdom, but it is also a criminal offence to do so knowingly and any breaches could jeopardise our Tier 2, 4 and 5 licences.

In order to avoid liability, we need to be able to demonstrate that for all casual workers certain prescribed documents were checked and copies retained, before the employee commenced work.  Casual workers with only limited leave to remain will have their ‘right to work’ documents rechecked periodically.

Many casual workers will be UK or EEA nationals and so will be able to work without restriction, but if they have a student visa, they will only be able to work for up to 20 hours per week.

Even though they are from within the EEA, casual workers from Accession countries (Bulgaria and Romania) have to register for work before they can be employed.  This can be a lengthy process, and they may not start work even if they are students, until they can produce a Registration Certificate.

Due to the University’s need to demonstrate that it complies with immigration legislation, ‘right to work’ checks will usually be carried out by staff in Human Resources.  If the ‘right to work’ check is carried out by the local contact within the School/Department please refer to the ‘‘right to work’ checking Flowchart’ (Appendix 6) for details.  Appendix 7 - List A and List B attached to Form 7A and Form 7C give details of which documents are acceptable for an ‘right to work’ check.  In the event of any problems in this respect, HR staff will liaise with both the School/Department and the appointee.

As casual workers are appointed by Schools and Departments, in order to have a robust procedure, an ‘right to work’ check will need to be carried out for each new appointment unless a Form 7C is completed which assumes that the immigration documents held on file are valid, in date and any visas have been checked within the last twelve months. 

In the interests of efficiency, where Schools/Departments are planning events for which they intend to engage a large number of casual workers, Human Resources would appreciate advance notice of the event.

9.    Procedure for Processing Payments

Form 7A - Casual Workers must initially be established on the HR/Payroll system by the completion of Form 7A.  Reporting managers should complete section B and E and instruct the appointee to complete the remainder of the form and take it, together with the documents needed for their ‘right to work’ checks to Human Resources before starting work.  If the ‘right to work’ check is carried out by the School/Department the copies must be endorsed with ‘This is a true likeness of ……….’ and should be signed and dated.  Please note no payment will be made for any work done until this form has been received by Human Resources and the ‘right to work’ check carried out.

Form 7B – should be used to notify payment instructions to the Payroll Office. This is a multiple entry form and can be used for the payment of more than one casual worker.  Alternatively, you can now submit your payment online through the HR Utilities website.  For more information and to be set up to use this facility please contact Jools Rogers, HR Systems Administrator, on extension 4569 (j.e.rogers@aston.ac.uk).

Form 7C – Casual Workers who hold more than one casual appointment within the University or may be taking up a further period of casual work within three months of the end of their last appointment should use this form.  This form assumes that details which have already been supplied from a previous appointment on Form 7A have not changed (address, bank details, emergency contact, equal opportunities).  If this is not the case you must complete Form 7A.

The preferred method of payment is by direct credit to a bank account.

The weekly deadline for payment forms (7B) to be received in Payroll for processing is 5.00 pm every Tuesday, with payment taking place the following Monday.  Payment cannot take place unless a successful ‘right to work’ check has been carried out and a Form 7A or 7C has been submitted to Human Resources for processing.

The weekly deadline for casual payment requests to be authorised for payment the following Monday on the HR Utilities website is 1pm on Wednesday.

Payments are usually made within 2 weeks of the payment request reaching the Payroll Section and will be subject to deductions for income tax and national insurance contributions.

10.   Network User Accounts

All network user accounts will be generated through entry of new appointments onto the HR system.  Once HR knows that a new member of staff is starting (i.e. on receipt of a correctly completed Form 7A or 7C and successful ‘right to work’ check) their details will be put on to the HR/Payroll System which will trigger the creation of a network user account, details of which will be given to the individual and/or their manager.