Wages and Pensions

Wages

1^st April 2018 sees an increase in the National Minimum Wage rates together with an increase in the single minimum hourly rate per The Agricultural Wages of Scotland.

It has been announced that the National Minimum Wages rates will increase as follows:

Of course Agricultural Wages of Scotland have a single minimum hourly rate which applies to all agricultural workers irrespective of age and duties and this will increase from £7.50 per hour to £7.83 per hour. An additional sum of £1.20 per hour is payable for workers with the appropriate qualification. Workers who agree to undertake an SCQF level 4 or 5 in Agriculture/Horticulture (ore equivalent) must be paid a minimum of £5.00 per hour.

The minimum overtime rate for a worker in the first 26 weeks of employment is payable at 1.5 times the minimum hourly rate after 48 hours per week, after 26 weeks of employment the minimum rate remains the same but is payable on hours worked after the basic 39 hours per week.

The dog allowance has increased from £5.60 to £6.00 per dog per week for a maximum of 4 dogs.

Pensions

All employers will now have staged for auto enrolment workplace pensions, this is the law introduced in 2012 that all employers must provide a pension scheme for employees. This law has been phased in over the years for employers, with staging dates being staggered depending on the size of workforce employed. All current employers will have staged by early 2018 and all new employers must provide a pension scheme for their workers from the date they register for PAYE with HM Revenue & Customs.

The law states that minimum employee and employer pension contributions require to be paid for any employees enrolled into the workplace pension scheme. The initial contribution rates were set at 1% for both employee and employer and 1^st April 2018 sees the first increase in these rates followed by a further increase from 1^st April 2019. The table below details the increases due: