Contracted hours

JodieR

I run the payroll for somone who gets funding to employ carers to care for her disabled daughter. They get paid a normal hourly rate when they work through the day, but then get a flat £30 when they stay the night. Night shift is from 11pm - 8am, ie 9 hours, so this equates to £3.33 per hour, which is below minimum wage. I'm now concerned that when I record their contracted hours, in some cases it'll look like overall they're being paid below the minimum wage. Does anyone know if this will cause a problem or if there's anything I can/should do to inform HMRC or if I should count the night-shift as less than 9 hours?

reader

JodieR wrote: »

I run the payroll for somone who gets funding to employ carers to care for her disabled daughter. They get paid a normal hourly rate when they work through the day, but then get a flat £30 when they stay the night. Night shift is from 11pm - 8am, ie 9 hours, so this equates to £3.33 per hour, which is below minimum wage. I'm now concerned that when I record their contracted hours, in some cases it'll look like overall they're being paid below the minimum wage. Does anyone know if this will cause a problem or if there's anything I can/should do to inform HMRC or if I should count the night-shift as less than 9 hours?

It might be worth calling ACAS just to confirm that the £30/night is legal, if it is then it is always worth giving HMRC a call just for piece of mind (take the name of the person you are speaking to as their advice changes depending on whose on the other end of the phone).

With regard to RTI and recording hours, I use Money Soft Payroll Manager, and in this type of situation I normally select "other" when recording the normal number of hours an employee does/week.

I would have thought that if you are recording too many hours and not enough pay this is going to trigger an investigation (for obvious reasons).

JodieR

It is definitely legal as they're provided with a bed and they're allowed to sleep, they just need to be on hand to help should she require anything during the night.

I did end up phoning HMRC about it and the girl I spoke to just couldn't understand why I thought this would ever be an issue. She said that the night shifts should be counted as 9 hours and there's no way that this would ever trigger an investigation or have any impact on claimants entitlement to benefits. If this is the case then why ARE we recording this information?! I can't get my head around it!