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Casual Worker Payments - Guide for Departments

A guide for departments on how to pay a casual worker for a one-off duty

Content

This guidance is intended to be read by managers and administrators with responsibility for the recruitment of employees and workers. It must be read in conjunction with other advice issued by the HR Division on UCL recruitment procedures and Contracts of Employment and its compliance with statutory legislation. This note is specific to UCL departments who invite individuals to undertake a short term one-off duty (e.g. lecturing on a course) without the requirement to issue a formal contract of employment.

Right to Work in the UK

1. It is a legal requirement for the line manager or their delegate to conduct a Right-to-work check before any work is undertaken.  If the worker is unable to provide the documentary proof required by UCL to demonstrate they have the right to work in the UK, they cannot be engaged.

Relationships

2. There is no employment relationship between UCL and the worker.  Any payments made to a worker for a one off duty will be treated as subject to Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and National Insurance contribution (NIC) deductions under Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) legislation. If the worker is undertaking a duty or service that could qualify as self employment and UCL is invoiced for this service, payment should not be made via UCL Payroll Services but via the UCL Finance Division (see later paragraph).

Procedure

3. When engaging a worker for a one-off duty the following two documents should be provided to the worker to enable the understanding of the relationship with UCL, the requirements to satisfy 'right to work' legislation and how UCL will make payment to them:

Workers Guide on Payments for a One-Off Duty at UCL


4. The Fees and expenses for casual workers form has been designed to collect all the relevant details required to process a payment. Ideally workers should be asked to complete this form prior to their engagement. Departments may adapt this form or use their own method to capture the required information contained within this form. However, without all of this information UCL may not be able to make payment to the worker. 

5. Unitemps, part of UCL’s Recruitment team, is UCL’s preferred method for engaging casual staff/ temporary workers and for processing one-off payments (previously known as form 6 & form 7). Unitemps offer a streamlined, online management of temporary workers that saves time and reduces admin work for hiring managers, removing the need to carry out eligibility to work checks. All workers are set-up on MyHR and payments, including holiday pay, are processed by UCL Payroll.

6. These payments will have the appropriate PAYE and NIC deducted in line with HMRC rules, rates and limits. Unless the worker has submitted a P45 or a Starter Checklist or HMRC have issued a tax coding to UCL, the pay received will be subject what is known as BR tax. This means all pay will be subject to the rate of basic tax (currently 20%) and no personal allowances or ‘free pay’ will be allowed. Completed Starter Checklists should be emailed to hr.services@ucl.ac.uk.

Bank Details 

7. UK Bank details are requested because UCL is committed to paying workers and employees by BACs payments which are more secure and timely than cheque payments. Payments can not be made to overseas bank accounts.

Personal Information

8. HMRC no longer enable employers to submit on their end of year returns any temporary National Insurance numbers (NINOs). This means that where the employer holds no NINO, any PAYE or NIC contributions deducted will not be allocated to the employees NIC, or tax record in a timely manner and may prejudice any state benefits which may become payable at a later date.

9. HMRC use the number of no NINO or no employee date of birth as an indicative indicator on whether an employer has thorough procedures for collecting important personal data. It is therefore important that in all cases that the workers date of birth (DOB), NINO and gender are ascertained before engagement and without exception before submitting any payment.

10. UCL wishes to collect equal opportunities data to ensure that external workers are engaged on the basis of merit. 11. Workers must be asked to provide the relevant details which must be treated in the strictest confidence.

Self Employment

12. There are some instances of engagement where it may fulfil self employed status e.g.undertaking duties that do not form part of the core curriculum or where the Individuals employer is invoicing UCL for the individuals services.  Self employed status should not be determined by the worker or the department but in each case you should contact Habibur Choudhury within the Finance Division for an employment status questionnaire.  This form will be assessed by Finance and a decision on whether tax is deductible, or not, will be made. For further details please refer to 'UCL Finance Division Guidance Notes Payments to Self Employed Persons'

13. Where self employed status is upheld by Finance Division, payment must be processed via Finance.

HR Employment Policy

March 2023