A bank holiday weekend approaches and we know you’ll all be looking forward to doing your end of month Locum B forms. But which form to use for April 2017 now that the employer’s pension contribution has been increased from 14.3% to 14.38%; you may have received payment for work carried out before 1 April with the previous 14.3% rate applied; you may also have received payment for April work with the new 14.38% rate….?
We asked the pension agency this very question and their reply is that the new April 2017 Locum B form must be used for pay received in April, even if that means you’re using a mixture of pre-April 2017 as well as the new Locum A forms. Furthermore, the 14.38% rate must apply to all pay received, even for work paid at the 14.3% rate.
Regarding the 0.08% difference, their suggestions are to either
- Pay this difference yourself, costing 80p for every £1,000 of pensionable pay
- Invoice the practice separately for the difference
- Decide to not pension your affected income and return all your employer’s pension to the practice
You must not submit two different Locum B forms – any Locum B submitted for April must be in the new format.
None of these are ideal, but by far the least irksome and most pragmatic option seems to be the first one.
Perhaps the biggest implication will be if you don’t use the new April Locum B form and, some weeks or months down the line, your payment is rejected and you therefore potentially lose out on paying that month’s pension contribution altogether.
We have therefore updated the automatic Locum B forms in LocumDeck, so that when you next generate a Locum B form which includes a Locum A form with the previous 14.3% rate, you’ll get a message advising you of the extra cost payable by you, if you decide to pension it.
And if you’re not already using LocumDeck, now would be a very good time to start!
Ultimately, we’re certain the steps we’ve taken will cause the least disruption, and will continue as always to keep a close eye on any further potential issues.
PS we hope you like what we’ve done with the Locum B form tracker too. Let’s see who can break the record for the longest delay in getting their pension contributions cashed…