Anyone going on jury service?
HM Courts Service has just updated their jury service allowances with effect from 1st June 2010. The new rates are:
| Period of Jury Service | Maximum Financial Loss Allowance | |
| 4 hours or less on any day |
More than 4 hours on any day | |
| First 10 days | £32.47 | £64.95 |
| From 11th day up to 200th day | £64.95 | £129.91 |
| From the 201st day | £114.03 | £228.06 |
How do you handle jury service payment as there is a right and, a very definitely wrong, way? If you reduce the juror’s allowance from gross pay then the employee will receive more pay than normal (and the employer will pay more employer NICs) which means that the certificate of loss of earnings that you provided to the court has been completed incorrectly – essentially this is fraud. What should happen is that the net pay is adjusted so that when the juror’s allowance is taken into account the employee’s net pay is the same as usual.
In order to correctly calculate the amount to be deducted, the employer needs to carry out a net to gross calculation. For example an employee pays tax at 20% and NICs at 11%, and his normal earnings for a day are £100. For each day the employee is on jury service the employer will pay £100 but reduce it by £94.13 which is the grossed up equivalent of £64.95 (the 2010/11 full day rate for the first ten days of jury service). The calculation is £94.13 (100 – (20 +11) ÷ 100) = £64.95.
