The new arrangements started with the Manpower Return sent at the end of August. If you have not yet familiarised yourself with the changes, please do so as a matter of urgency as the pay your staff receive may be affected. Please retain a copy of the guidance notes locally for reference when completing Manpower Returns and for queries.

1. To recap, the key points are:
• Managers don’t need to calculate and report unsocial enhancements for periods of sickness starting on or after 1st August 2010. The ESR system will automatically calculate and pay average unsocial enhancements for each day of that sickness. Payment will be shown on payslips as “AfC Absence”

• Managers still need to calculate and report unsocial enhancements each month for periods of sickness that start before 1st August 2010, whether the member of staff has since come back to work or not

2. In particular, I should like to draw the following points to your attention:
1. Although unsocial enhancements don’t need to be reported for periods of sickness starting 1st August 2010 or later, they must be reported for all periods when a member of your staff does work at unsociable times.

2. If you need to adjust previously reported sickness dates for periods of sickness starting 1st August 2010, or after, please be aware that this will produce an automatic adjustment to AfC Absence pay. This includes the automatic recovery of any AfC Absence pay previously paid for an open period of sickness that has subsequently been corrected to reflect that the member of staff has returned to work. Late notification of additional sick leave dates will produce an automatic payment of AfC Absence pay. Please note that the Payroll team is not able to negotiate any delayed recovery in cases like this, or intervene in the recovery process.

3. If you have not already done so, please make the contents of the attached Managers Briefing available to your staff. Staff queries about the unsocial enhancements due and about payment during sick leave should be handled by their manager initially. If, after referring to the attached guidance plus a check of rotas and the manager’s copy of the Manpower Return, the manager is not able to resolve the query, the member of staff should log a query on the Pay Queries Helpline. Managers can also use the following e-mail address if they have queries about the completion of Manpower Returns: :Payroll - Manpower Issues (Manager Use Only). Please note that this facility is for managers only, it is not for queries from individual members of staff.

Please forward this e-mail to any relevant managers in your area. Please note – these arrangements do not affect Medical staff or staff in GSTS Pathology.