Or does this make absolutely no sense?

[Sofiegiraffe]

Please can someone just confirm that I'm not losing my mind and that an error has clearly been made here?

If you earn a salary of £45,753 (NHS band 8a), and receive a 3% pay rise, according to my calculations you'll now be on £47,125. According to this information: https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/member-hub/cost-being-scheme, earning between £26,824 and £47,845 places you in the 9.3% bracket for NHS pension contribution, and you'd therefore need to be earning more than £47,845 before you moved up to the next pension contribution bracket of 12.5%. Thus, someone earning £45,753 should not, after a 3% pay rise, be contributing anymore than a 9.3% pension.

Would it therefore be a fairly safe assumption that if payroll have deducted 12.5% pension (complete with backdated arrears to April), thus making the take home pay less now than it was pre pay rise, there has been some kind of mistake?!

Op am assuming you are on the first point of band 8a? If so and you have definitely had no uplift then I agree with you re the pension contributions.

Why don’t you queue this with your employer , looks like a mistake.

@Motnight

Op am assuming you are on the first point of band 8a? If so and you have definitely had no uplift then I agree with you re the pension contributions.

Yes, first point. I'm so confused by the whole thing 🙈

It really does seem like a mistake to me.

I was promoted a couple of years ago from band 7 to 8a and had to explain to HR that I wasn't going to accept a pay cut in the process which is what they originally offered me!

@Motnight

What?! How were they justifying a pay cut when climbing a band? That's ridiculous!

I'm hoping it's a mistake! I'll call payroll tomorrow.

Good luck!

To be honest in my case it was sheer incompetence 😬

No pay rise should result in you taking home less pay!!!
I agree with your calculations and it sounds like you need to talk to pay dept and HR to query it

Was the pay rise backdated? Not NHS but public sector here and have experienced this as a one-off because arrears of pay pushed my pay into the next pension band for that month only. Was explained that pension calculations were assuming the annual salary was 12 × that month's gross salary. This was many years ago so I can't remember whether it was refunded.