Employment - salary q

[Emmascout1774]

would appreciate some advice from anyone who knows about this kind of thing.
I’ve worked as a teacher for a long time, held a number of management roles, am now part time.
recently a job was advertised through my school to work one extra day a week doing consultancy with other schools etc. (like in a MAT). The salary was advertised at £250 a day, once a week. I thought ok that sounds good, some extra money in addition to normal salary. Anyway I applied and was successful. I signed a letter accepting the job which clearly states that the salary is £250 per day.

I got my first pay check and the contribution from this role is a lot less than I expected. I contacted the finance team, thinking that a mistake had just been made. However I then was told that the £250 was before the school made my NI and pension contributions. So actually now it’s more like £150 a day.

i’m furious. However, am I right to be?

You have accepted a role paying £250 per day gross. They cannot deduct the employers' NI and pension contributions. They have to pay them, not you. The clue is in the fact that they are called the employer's contributions! This is a clear case of unlawful deduction from salary.

OP bridge is a solicitor

Thank you everyone.
i’ve checked the paperwork - the job offer and the acceptance letter - and it clearly states that the salary is £250 a day. After all the deductions from that amount it’s basically less than £100 a day. It’s a difficult role and am getting pretty much zero help from my line managers in how to do it, the whole thing is so badly thought out.
i am going to contact my union for advice but i will absolutely be chasing this up.

Yeah as others say, they definitely cannot deduct their NI and pension contributions from the £250. The cost to them is £250 plus employer pension and NI contributions.

They need to pay you £250 per day gross.
They need to then taje off your deductions (NI/tax/pension).
They need to pay employer's NI and Pension contributions themselves, not take it from your net pay.

Tell them to get it sorted as per above! What they are doing is illegal (if you are correct that they are deducting things they should not)

Sounds like a payroll error. Have you tried pointing this out to them and seeing what they say?

Was it advertised as a freelance/self-employed post?

If they've expected to pay a consultant £250 a day and that's their budget, they wouldn't have budgeted for employer NI and pension costs - it can be quite a chunk on top of gross pay. But that needed to be made clear to you when you applied and in the offer letter. I think legally they may be obliged to treat you as an employee for both roles, but they'd have needed to think about that.

Absolutely not how you work out teachers' salaries. They are paid 195th per day. Though this does not matter in this case as the remuneration was specified at £250 per day (you may gave a point about additional holiday pay though, dependant on contract wording)

Thanks for all your help everyone. I’ve had a few meetings since then and basically have received a big apology. Complete cock up in communication above me. Anyway they’ve offered me a few options to proceed with, will work out which one is best financially over the weekend.