Independent Living Quarterly - your direct payments newsletter.
Autumn 2016.
Information from Diverse Cymru about direct payments for users in Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire
Introduction
We hope that in the short time you have known us that your experiences have been positive. We look forward to working together in the future. 2016 has started in a busy fashion with the transfer as well as the ever increasing challenges of providing high quality support at a time when budgets are being squashed. Our aim at the outset of the year was to raise our profile in West Wales by doing our bit to help increase referrals across the three Counties by providing training to the Local authorities, giving talks and presentations to carers and disability forums/groups.
We believe that it is ever more important to share the knowledge that we have gathered over 14 years of supporting people to live independently while using their direct payment. We are making a continued effort to engage and network more publicly, therefore if you are involved in an access, focus, or disability groups and would like us to provide a talk on direct payments then please get in touch with me.
We would like to welcome back Sioned Jones, our Senior ILA for Carmarthen, who returns from maternity leave on the 10th October. Sioned has been enjoying her quality time at home with her beautiful baby boy Elis and we look forward to her return.
Kay Hughes stepped in for Sioned and has done an exceptional job managing the Carmarthen area and the Independent Living Advisor (ILA) team for the last 9 months. She will soon resume her ILA role on a part-time basis while also becoming our new Personal Assistant Trainer, delivering an Agored Cymru accredited course to our pool of prospective PAs.
A big warm thank you to Kay from the West Wales team!
We have lots of news in this edition, happy reading.
Christina Thomas
Regional Support Service Manager
West Wales Team
Meet the Team
Christina Thomas, Regional Direct Payments Support Services Manager - 07852 229 448
Kay Hughes, Independent Living Advisor/PA Trainer - 07852 228 845
Mai Jennings, Senior Independent Living Advisor - 07852 229 440
Sally Grenfell, Senior Independent Living Advisor - 07852 229 468
Alli Scott, Independent Living Advisor - 07983 252 606
Cathryn Hunt, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 227 837
Emma Rees, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 227 047
Gemma Griffiths, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 374
Helen Evans, Direct Payments Payroll and Managed Accounts Officer
Jane Williams, Administration Officer
Karen Bladen, Independent Living Advisor - 07495 899 277
Karen James, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 566
Leila Morris, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 972
Llinos Maher, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 926
Mark Phillips, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 227 569
Megan Griffith-Salter, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 388
Richard Truscott, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 210
Sioned Jones, Senior Independent Living Advisor - 07852 229 413
Terri Nash, Independent Living Advisor - 07852 228 104
Service Update
Diverse Cymru are committed to putting the people who use our services at the heart of everything we do and providing a high quality service. We continue to develop new ways of supporting people and improve our current services by listening to your feedback, views and ideas. Over the past nine months we’ve taken your input on-board and made the following changes:
· Payroll is now processed four-weekly, meaning there’s less work for you.
· We now have a Senior ILA managing each county area who in turn have a team of dedicated ILAs working in that county.
· All of our service users has a dedicated ILA or a contact person.
· We now offer a Managed Accounts service, which provides a more stress-free option by managing your direct payments and your contact with HMRC on your behalf. We’re delighted to see more and more of our service users signing up, please speak to your ILA if you would like to take advantage of this free service.
· We can now manage your PAs pension contribution payments and, if you use a Managed Account, we can even set you up with a pension scheme.
· We’ve established separate peer support groups for Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion.
· We will soon be offering an Agored Cymru accredited Personal Assistant training course to our pool of prospective PAs.
· We have added an additional telephone line to our Carmarthen office to help us answer more calls during busy periods. You can now call us on 01267 245 579 and 01267 245 580.
We also have a new email address, u, to give you an additional way to contact us.
In this edition of the newsletter we have included more features, including good news stories, and we welcome any feedback and input around what you’d like to see in future editions.
FAQ
Q. What is my PA’s holiday entitlement?
A. We have an annual leave breakdown on page 7 but your ILA can also provide you with an annual leave calculator.
Q. Can I give my PA a wage increase?
A. Our best advice is to contact your ILA who can help you with a budget review to ensure that you have enough money in your account to do so.
Q. My PA’s DBS has passed three years; do they need to have another one?
A. Yes, the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) guidance recommends that this should be renewed after 3 years. Please contact your ILA who will advise you of the DBS contact person in your area.
Q. Who can help me with financial returns?
A. We no longer have Account Support Workers but your ILA can provide training for you to complete them yourself if you are able, or if you sign up to our Managed Accounts there will be no need for you to complete these.
News
Two of our Senior ILAs, Mai Jennings and Sally Grenfell, represented Diverse Cymru at the Alzheimer’s Memory Walk in Llanelli.
Mai said:
”The sun did break through once or twice and everyone was in great spirits and enjoyed the walk and encouraged each other. Thanks to everyone in West Wales who sponsored us, between all of us we managed to raise around £300”.
Employer’s Responsibilities
Staff Holidays and Payments
As of April 2009, all employers are required by law to allow their employees to have 5.6 weeks paid holiday per year (pro rata for part time staff). For employees who work 5 days per week this is the equivalent of 28 days per year and includes bank holidays and public holidays. This is the statutory minimum requirement.
Below is a quick guide to calculating holiday entitlements:
· Full-time (5 days a week) - 28 days.
· Part-time (4 days a week) - 22.4 days.
· Part-time (3 days a week) - 16.8 days.
· 6 day week - 28 days (Maximum statutory entitlement).
· Compressed hours (e.g. 36 hours in 4 days) - 201 hours per year (36 hours x 5.6 weeks).
· Annualised hours (e.g. 1,600 hours at an average of 33.5 hours a week.) - 187.6 hours (33.5 hours x 5.6 weeks).
In April 2016 the Government’s new National Living Wage become law. If a PA is aged 25 or over and not in the first year of an apprenticeship, they’ll be legally entitled to at least £7.20 per hour.
As an employer, you’ll need to make sure you’re paying your staff correctly as the National Living Wage will be enforced as strongly as the previous National Minimum Wage.
From October 2016 the new rates will be:
· £7.20 per hour - 25 yrs old and over
· £6.95 per hour - 21-24 yrs old
· £5.55 per hour 18-20 yrs old
· £4 per hour - 16-17 yrs old
· £3.40 for apprentices under 19 or 19 or over who are in the first year of apprenticeship.
DBS update service
We are currently increasing our pool of people looking for work as a Personal Assistant (PA). Once a prospective PA signs up to our matching service they are able to view, and apply for, our service users’ vacancies. Ideally we would like to be able to provide our service users with immediate cover from our pool, but unless a prospective PA has an updated Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, which allows transfer from one job to another, then we cannot offer that facility.
If you have a PA that would like extra hours then please ask them to join our matching service on our website and advise that the best chance to increase their chances of immediate work is to have an updated DBS.
NB - DBS checks used to be called Criminal Record Bureau, or CRB, checks.
Benefits
The online DBS update service allows applicants to keep their DBS certificates up to date and employers to check a DBS certificate.
Applicants
You need to register to use the update service, which costs £13 per year payable by debit or credit card only. There’s no charge if you’re a volunteer.
How to register
If you’ve not yet applied for a DBS check, you can register for the update service using the application reference number. DBS must receive your application form within 28 days.
If you’ve already applied, you can register for the update service using your DBS certificate number. You must do this within 19 days of the certificate being issued.
You can use the DBS tracking service to check the progress of your DBS certificate.
Once you’ve registered, you can use the update service to:
· view your details
· take your certificate from one job to the next
· give employers permission to check your certificate
· see who’s checked your certificate
· add or remove a certificate
For more information please visit www.gov.uk/dbs-update-service
Payroll Information and Updates
We receive a number of queries relating to the new payroll dates: When to send us a PA’s hours, when PAs are paid, etc.
The next PA pay date will be Monday 31st October 2016, and every 4 weeks after that.
You need to call in with hours if varied one week before each of these pay dates, the next being Monday 24th October 2016.
Each payment will cover the four-weekly period ending the day before the pay date. For example, on 31st October your PAs will be paid for the period from 3rd – 30th October.
Please call your ILA if you would like any more details on this.
Payslips
The Diverse Cymru payroll system produces slightly different payslips to those you may have received previously. The two copies you receive are slightly different: the employer’s copy of the payslip has the employer’s address and the PA copy does not.
In order to reduce waste and to help protect the environment we would encourage you to sign up to paperless payslips, where copies are sent via email.
HMRC
The quarterly window in which to pay your HMRC tax bill is after the 5th October 2016 but no later than the 19th October 2016.
We are aware that some people might have not been sent their white paying-in book from HMRC; if you have yet to receive yours could you please ring the Carmarthen office on 01267 245 579 or, alternatively, email u so we can order one on your behalf.
HMRC also offers and encourages online payment of quarterly tax bills.
HMRC Tax Code
We get quite a few requests from our service users asking us to change their tax code. Unfortunately we are not able to contact the HMRC on your behalf for this matter, but we can advise you how to go about this. Once you have requested this change with HMRC, they will be in touch with us and we will be able to proceed.
Automatic Enrolment
This applies to all employers who have at least one member of staff and it doesn’t just apply to businesses; if you employ someone directly to work for you, such as a PA, you are an employer and will need to ensure that any eligible employees are enrolled into a workplace pension.
The Pension Regulator is currently sending out letters advising people of what is known as the “staging date”. It is essential that you respond to any correspondence you receive from the Regulator as ignoring information being sent out could result in a fine.
Diverse Cymru has set up a Pensions Administration Service available to anyone who uses Diverse Cymru payroll, so please send any regulator letters to the Carmarthen office or email to u where we will input he information on your behalf and advise you if your PA is eligible for a pension scheme.
The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) has been set up by the Government especially for auto-enrolment. They are in place to make sure that every employer has access to a workplace pension scheme that meets the requirements of the new pension rules
For further information on NEST: nestpensions.org.uk or 0300 020 0090
Peer Support Groups - Summer 2016
The Benefits of a Peer Support Group
Peer support groups offer many benefits; they can empower people to support each other on a positive equal basis and offer something based on shared experiences.
The value of helping others enables people to develop and share their information, skills and experiences. Service users on direct payments have always provided invaluable support to each other through peer support groups.
Pembrokeshire
We had a great morning at the Hilton Court Gardens enjoying the stunning views and gardens.
We received lots of useful feedback about our direct payments service and our Director of Operations, Leonie Wallace, talked to the group about the wider work that Diverse Cymru does.