To think the NHS should be able to run its payroll properly

[collectingcpd]

Feeling totally fed up. Got my p60 today. It’s completely wrong. Has my taxable salary as less than 1/2 my actual salary and taxed at 40%. This is on a background of nearly a year of meetings and emails to get me on the correct pay scale (I’m still not), get the back pay and get a spread sheet of what was paid when and what is still owed. I was overpaid (I didn’t realise) for 3 years in one trust and then then sent me an email asking for it back. I’ve been over paid in another trust and gave up asking them how I should pay it back because they never replied. I’ve had colleagues not paid for months and every month when the pay didn’t go through one colleague would call payroll and they said they could only pay the money on the pay date and that they’d correct it the next month....but didn’t for 3 months running. Another colleague was accidentally paid £700/hr for a extra shift. The list goes on. I just despair at the days of my life I’ve spent trying to sort out my own pay, but the standards expected from me at work just go up. Just needed a moan.

I feel your pain I over paid on deductions from my wages to the tune of £1500 in total. The first £900 I got back no hassle, when they cocked up and made the same mistake again taking £600 off me that they shouldn't have done I think I would have gotten more sense talking to a chimpanzee. You'd think a basic grasp of maths would be required to work in pay roll, not in my trust though!

I queried my wage in the summer and was assured many times that it was correct.
I got payroll to check it again in October. I received my back pay for their mistake this month.I once received my Christmas enhancements in May after chasing them.

Each and every colleague has stories like this. They really are terrible. I assumed it was just my trust but clearly not

Ours are incompetent too

I think my tax code ended up being adjusted 4 times in 3 weeks - from me having money back in my pay because I'd overpaid (a few hundred), to then having it taken off me as I'd underpaid (about twice the amount I'd been refunded), then having a check through for a small amount

Plus several other occasions - either we all work for he same trust or all of them are rubbish (when I rang inland revenue though as there was a big issue (payroll told inland revenue I'd been paid twice so only paid half my tax - seriously if they'd paid me the extra money I'd have paid the tax but needless to say I didn't have double pay for a year) when inland revenue asked who I worked for and I said the NHS the reply was 'don;t tell me XXXX trust? you're the 10th I've spoken to today - and it was about 9.30am.

No, but after 20 years I've never seen any NHS employer capable of running its payroll accurately.

So maybe YABU as clearly it is an impossible task

Payroll is an impossible task. Mainly because you are at the mercy of every department getting you accurate information within a tight deadline - and it doesn't always happen

However the p60 issue is very odd. It should be a reflection of what you have actually been paid in the year. Do you make very high pension contribution NS?

If you think your local payroll (or SBS) are incompetent, just wait until you retire. NHS Pensions is the most hopeless organisation I've ever dealt with. They once erroneously refused me pension protection I was entitled to, which resulted in halving my projected pension. It took a formal complaint to get them to agree I was right. They then closed my case and removed the protection because a previous NHS employer hadnt replied to a letter they had sent. So another formal complaint, and another victory. Now I've actually taken early retirement, they got my retirement date completely wrong, not paid me anything at all until I complained, then managed to wrongly pay me thousands in a random lump sum, but underpay my actual lump sum and monthly payment. They've now put another random amount in my bank account with no explanation.They are not fit for purpose. Oh and I've still got the thousands of pounds lump sum that they paid me in error but they refused to dealt with my request to repay it back straightaway.....

anna you made me LOL! You are right, none of them can do it. I’ve worked across 12 trusts and either I’ve been affected or I know someone who has been affected in every trust.

Gotten I pay 14.5% pension (which is also wrong), but not sufficiently wrong to account from the gross discrepancy between what I had paid into my bank account and what is on my P60.
backseat, but one day they'll Send you an email letting you know that 15 years ago they incorrectly paid you, and now they’d like it back. That’s happened to several colleagues.

Oh god I've just got a job working for the NHS!

This is exactly the type of thing happens to me

Tax codes are the HMRCs fault not payroll. NHS pay is needlessly and ridiculously complex. It should be done right of course but it is crazy.

Some points:

• no employer is charge of changing tax codes - only the tax office can do this.
• payroll can only process information they have. It's normally the managers/HR who haven't done something correctly.
• although they get it wrong - half the time it's people not understanding their pay.

- although they get it wrong - half the time it's people not understanding their pay.

Occasionally maybe. Nowhere close to 1/2 the time.

Don’t the NHS usually outsource their payroll? Unusual if it’s still ‘in house’ I though most did away years ago to big firms, but our HR are very slow on ESR updates and change of circumstances (which then go to the (outsourced) payroll company and it can be a complete mess! Usually HR is where the issue is and payroll are just doing what their system is telling them to do

Sweet Jesus people - I do a small payroll (100 people) and these stories are making me feel physically unwell - payroll is such a big responsibility and to have people and organisations not taking it seriously is absolutely hideous.

And whilst I take the point about managers and HR, if there were proper controls and sanctions that wouldn’t continue.

And whoever processes payroll can override the tax code for whimsy if they feel like it. I’ve had to rectify such an issue myself.

Absolute fucking nonsense.

It's horrendous. And try going on maternity leave. Not a chance of being paid correctly.

10 years + in one trust. No issues personally . Our payroll isn't bad issues mainly surround bank pay or new starters more than anything else.

Most NHS Trusts contract out payroll and HR to organisations like Serco, G4S and the like. This explains a lot.

Our payroll is within our trust. And useless. Twice in past few years I’ve then recieved a bill from HMRC because I’d been taxed incorrectly and under paid last time by £1500. A coupe of years ago it was £900. If my tax code changed all the time I’d understand but it doesn’t.
I used to have a salary sacrifice car and they kept taking 2 lots of money out saying I had 2 cars. I didn’t.. but wouldn’t give me the money back in the same month they took it.. made me
Wait until the next month. So some months I didn’t have enough money to cover monthly outgoings.

They also “lost” a colleagues pension payments. It was only as she’d rung to obtain an upto date statement and they said she’d not been paying into it that she investigated. They’d been taking pension out of her wages but it hadn’t been going into her pension!! No idea where it was going.

They lost my claims form once, no trace of it and denied it being submitted, however we photocopy everything and we had the stamped recieved copies.. so it had been there and they lost it! Took about 6 months to get my overtime and expenses paid back!

I’m worried that they have ‘lost’ my pension payments too. I haven’t had a statement for 3 years, but have been paying. NHS pensions keep insisting it’s all on my account, it isn’t. I’ve asked them to send me a paper statement........that takes 3 months!!!!

I think that you are supposed to use your ESR total rewards statement online these days, rather than get a paper pension statement. That's ok if your pension is straightforward, but if it isn't, your TRS is likely to be wrong, mine was completely wrong. I paid £75 to get a retirement forecast which was supposed to take up to 3 months, after 6 months and chasing they finally sent it and guess what, it was wrong....

Back to payroll errors, larger acute trusts still seem to have internal payroll services, and in general I've found these much better than outsourced. SBS managed to get my pay wrong 6 months out of 12 one year!

I had 2 sisters working for nhs payroll. They usually had 500 people on their payrolls. Pay was nearly always right.

Then it was contracted out. Payroll was changed to 1500 people on their payroll. Both sisters where conscientious. They couldn’t do their jobs properly. People where not paid properly.

You get what you pay for.

(Incidentally payroll went back in-house due to the amount of over payments made).

I’ll go with hopeless too. I’ve asked for my p45 for 3 years now. Never got it. I’m still technically employed by our trust. You couldn’t make this shit up.

When we were in the UK, DH worked for the Environment Agency. They employed one guy @£27k. First paycheck he was paid the full £27k!! He had to repay it at £100 a month.

Check all of your payslips for the tax year - then total up all the elements and the annual totals should be on your P60.

If they aren't the same - that needs to be questioned.

In regards to what is paid into your Bank - each month that should be exactly the same as the Nett Pay (Pay after all deductions) shown on each payslip.

HMRC may decide your tax code but surely they aren't the ones who enter it into your employer's payroll system?

I have my own story from a few years back - started work in an NHS-related body, 15 hours a week at 15k pro rata. The first month my pay was about £150 - barely paid for the commute. I am indebted to the lovely lady at my other part-time job (21 hours a week also at around £15k pro rata) who worked out they'd set emergency tax at 40%. Think they'd mistaken me for a dentist or something. Fortunately it only took a couple of months to pay it back.

@Anniegetyourgun HMRC use real time information so it is them that do it