… For me and some of my colleagues…. Which means their pension contributions appear to be reduced and I could potentially have future confusion when documenting my basic salary for my wife’s spousal visa renewal.

The pay slip is showing – Salary and Contractual Hours which when added would equal the basic salary in my contract.

Are they being cheeky ****?

Best to speak to HR, check your contract and get some advice there. All the info on what can and can’t will probably come from there and perhaps the employee handbook.

Will do, when they are back in. There is nothing in my contract about this – others are saying they always do it. I will be tempted to flounce if they don’t sort it.

my pay is marked down as basic then on top of that any extra I do. If I’m on holiday my basic is down on hours and my holiday pay is on another line of the slip which obviously totals up to my full salary. my pension and the employer contribution is done on the final amount. If I paid tax or NI it would be on the full amount also.

I’m not doing extra though, my basic doesn’t cover my basic rate for my contractual hours stated in my vontract – they have a contractual hours section to make up for the shortfall in my basic. Extra hours would come under the overtime section – my company tract states that I should be getting a basic salary for a set amount of hours – I’m not on zero hours with a basic rate and an hourly rate on top of that.

if you have a contract with set hours and pay and they are paying all that with NI and tax then it might just be how they calculate it on a wage slip

I would want clarification though because you may only get basic or some such if ill or on holiday

NI and Tax is a separate box and deducted from the total….

As I said – if I’m receiving contractually a basic salary of XX, I expect my wage slip and pensions contributions to reflect that – not half and the rest to be paid under terms like “contractual hours” – which means should I take even a week off then there could be potentially an issue with marriage visa renewal as my wage is calculated from the lowest basic rate in a given period eg 6 months.

So according to my colleagues they split pay into three main areas i their contracts to avoid large pension contributions. Basic salary, which is half the basic they verbally agreed on, contracted hours and shift allowance. My contract however, does not reflect that like theirs do.

if it affects pensions – ie its not really salary like a one off gift/honorarium etc – then it also affect sickness and redundancy pay

I suspect they have good lawyers so its immoral but not illegal depending on what your contract says

Well everyone elses contracts reflect it – but when comparing mine with my colleagues it seems like they either **** up or tried to dupe me.

I don’t think it bodes well for my future development in the company and whether it will act in my best interests.

2017 and you think the employer is interested in your development and best intrests…? they pay you for doing what they want and thats the end of it. moving stuff around your pay slip involves potentially smaller liabilities for them and reflects how much your taking home and thats the end of it, what you d like your payslip to reflect for purposes other than reflecting the balance paid into your account/little brown envelope each pay day is largely irrelevant.. unfortunately in your case.

It affects take home if Im sick or maternity if I was a woman – none of which is indicated in either my contract or verbal agreement I have with the company. i took it based on the belief I would recieve that basic, not take home.

Had I known – I might have interviewed somewhere else.

As Tj would say “are you in a union, get in touch with your local citizens advice bureau”

Will do, when they are back in. There is nothing in my contract about this

Which is the first line of defence

Write to HR and ask why the payslip doesn’t match your contract

Join a union

Sounds extremely dodgy to me. Certainly holiday pay and sick pay should be worked out from your total pay not some spurious subdivision of pay and if they are using it to pay less on pensions Its at best unethical.

Blimey they sound like right cowboys.

Cheers guys.

Shame it’s not downright illegal, I’m surprised more companies are not doing it if they can actually get away with this – there’s very little on the net regarding my particular issue.