In order to comply with recent National Minimum Wage regulations from HMRC, we have had to make some changes very quickly to some salaries that this affects this month, to ensure people are not disadvantaged.

This mainly affects those with car parking permits and those with salary sacrifice schemes.

In previous years, lower bands have been temporarily uplifted by NHS Employers prior to any national pay award, however this year that has not happened nationally. All organisations are having to comply this month.

Some actions have been taken already, in time for your salary being paid on 26 April and for those staff, you should have received an email explaining the situation already.

There are still some outstanding actions for others which will be addressed by an extra pay run this week and further direct correspondence will follow to those individuals who are affected.

  1. For those where the car parking permit payment drops them below the NMW, the payment amount that has taken you below the NMW is being refunded. This refund will need to be recovered by the Trust when any national pay award backpay is paid out.
  2. For those who have contracts for cars or home electronics, we will pause the contracts in May until salaries are uplifted and recalculated. The contracts will then resume for the remaining number of months required. However for this month, the amount taken which takes you below the NMW will be refunded.
  3. For those who are making net payments for vehicles, the value that takes you below the minimum wage will show separately on your pay slip and the Workforce team will contact you next week to discuss further options.
  4. There are also a number of people paying accommodation charges and these will also be contacted to establish the revised way to pay for this.

We understand that for some this will be a significant change so we will work with you to address and queries.

We will be compiling some FAQs as soon as possible to provide further information for those affected. Please bear with the teams for the next few days but if you have immediate issues, please contact employment@liverpoolft.nhs.uk or smartsalary@liverpoolft.nhs.uk.