HR and Payroll bulletin - May 2025

Changes to Oracle Fusion 

Redwood is Oracle's next generation user experience, designed to streamline and deliver consistent user experience and provide advanced technology for user experience innovation. In practical terms, this means that the look and feel of Fusion screens will soon be changing. Our Onboarding and Exit Journeys are already utilising the Redwood interface and many more of the screens that you use as an employee and/or manager on a regular basis will be changing soon.

To support you through these changes, Oracle Guided Learning (OGL) will be fully updated and will provide navigational tours, new tips, and guidance to help you adapt to any process changes. We'll keep you updated on progress in the coming weeks and will offer a preview of what to expect and the support that will be available.

Important reminder for all People Managers - authorising claims

When authorising claims for your employees, it's your responsibility to verify all claims related to mileage, travel, overtime enhancements, and additional hours. You must ensure that these claims are submitted at the correct rate and unit for the employee. Please refer to the following detailed policy guidance and tables on the intranet:

  • Payable enhancements
  • Allowances and expenses table
  • Travel and expenses policy

If you use your car for work 

If you are required to drive your own vehicle for work it is your responsibility to ensure that your vehicle insurance covers you for business use; your MOT and tax are current; and that you have completed the drivers e-learning. You should also make your manager aware of any endorsements to your driving licence. Your manager may check your licence is valid using the government's check-driving-information. Please refer to the Travel and Expenses policy on the intranet for more information.

Compressed hours

If your working arrangement involves compressed hours, meaning you work longer working days over a shorter working week or fortnight, you will have an agreed, set, weekly working pattern. The two most common compressed hours arrangements are:

  • Nine days over two weeks with a set working pattern of 8.22 hours per day
  • Four days per week with a set working pattern of 9.25 hours per day

This means that, if you work 9.25 hours you should book the standard working hours for that day, which in this example would be 9.25 hours. Fusion defaults to 7.4 hours so employees working longer days need to edit the entry and amend the hours before submitting to their manager for approval.

For further details, please refer to the Compressed Hours policy - Compressed Hours is available on the intranet. 

Absence trigger report for managers 

Managers can now run a report on Fusion that provides details of all employees in their service/team who have reached a sickness absence trigger.

The report can be found via HCM Reports > Human Resources > (Under LCC Line Manager) > choose report HR036b. Use the filters at the top of the page to choose which report you want to run, either showing employees who have had absence of two weeks plus or the report that show employees who have had three plus occurrences.

Exit Journey is now live in Fusion

Understanding why employees choose to leave our organisation has never been more important. The Exit Journey is designed to gather valuable insights from exiting employees to help us understand any issues and support our ongoing recruitment and retention efforts.

Completing the Journey on Fusion, including the survey, is optional, but we would strongly encourage everyone to get involved and share their experiences.

  • Whenever a manager processes a resignation or retirement on Fusion, the system will generate a task inviting the employee to complete an exit survey.
  • The employee can access the survey on any work or personal device by logging into Fusion.
  • The employee can provide as much or as little information in the survey as they choose, then they click Submit once complete. 

How your information will be used 

People Services will receive a report of all completed exit surveys once the employee's termination date has passed to help us identify any issues or areas for improvement. Collated exit survey data will only be shared with leadership teams when appropriate, and to additionally support those efforts. 

New statutory pay rates from April 2025

From 6 April 2025 statutory pay rates for maternity pay, maternity allowance, paternity pay, adoption pay, shared parental pay, and parental bereavement pay increased from £184.03 to £187.18 per week and Statutory Sick Pay increased from £116.75 to £118.75 per week.

To qualify for these payments (other than maternity allowance), you must earn above the lower earnings limit. With effect from April 2025 this increased to £125 per week.

Increases to National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates 

From 1 April 2025, the National Living Wage (NLW) for those aged 21 and over is £12.21 per hour, while the National Minimum Wage (NMW) for 18- to 20-year-olds has increased to £10.00 per hour.

The NMW for 16- to 17-year-olds and apprentices (aged under 19 or in the first year of their apprenticeship) increased to £7.55 per hour.

Employer National Insurance contributions

From 6 April 2025, the national insurance contribution amount we pay as an employer increased to 15%.

Allowance and expenses rates from 1 April 2025

The allowance and expenses rates have now been reviewed and updated. The new rates, effective from 1 April 2025, can be found in the Allowances and Expenses Table available on the intranet.

Neonatal Care Leave Policy 

If you are a parent of a baby born on or after 6 April 2025 who is admitted into neonatal care up to the age of 28 days and has a continuous stay of seven full days or more, you will be entitled to neonatal care leave. You will be able to take a minimum of one week, and a maximum of 12 weeks, depending on how long your baby is in neonatal care. This is on top of other parental leave such as maternity, paternity and shared parental leave.   

You may also qualify for statutory neonatal care pay, if you have continuous service of at least 26 weeks ending with the relevant week and meet the lower earnings limit.

For more information, please refer to the Neonatal care leave policy, which is available on the intranet.

Maternity leave - support an employee who is pregnant - updated guidance 

The guidance on supporting an employee who is pregnant has been updated on the intranet. A brief summary is provided below.

On notification from the employee of the pregnancy, the manager should ensure:

The Mat L form is submitted by the employee or manager via Document Records on Fusion. The Employee will also need to provide their MatB1, issued by their doctor at the 20-week scan, to their manager. A copy of the MatB1 is not required by payroll.

Upon receipt of the MatB1, the manager should add the maternity absence onto Fusion without delay, confirming the expected due date, planned start and end dates for the leave, and the OMP information. It's important that both the planned start date and planned end dates are added at this stage. If the planned end date is unknown, the manager should enter it as 365 days.

When entering the OMP information on the absence, the manager will need to select either 12 weeks or 33 weeks, this is based on the option chosen by the employee on the Mat L form.

If the employee is not planning to return to work, the manager will need to ensure that the ‘Won’t return to work’ option is ticked.

The actual start date should be entered as soon as it is known, this can be updated later by the manager if the date changes, e.g. if the baby comes earlier than expected. 

On commencement of maternity leave manager should:

Ensure that the actual start date has been entered and is correct, amend if the date has changed for example, if baby has come earlier than expected. Once the baby is born the Actual Date of Childbirth needs to be entered (the Actual start date should change to the day after the birth if the baby is early).

Enter or update dates before the payroll deadline, if possible.

Guidance for inputting retirements on Fusion 

When searching for a leaver reason on Fusion, you may note that not all leaver reasons appear in the drop-down list that is immediately visible. However, if you start typing the reason, e.g., 'Retirement', all the relevant options will then appear. 

It's really important to input the correct retirement reason, as this drives the actions that Payroll and Lancashire Pensions Partnership (for LGPS) take following notification of the retirement, and an incorrect retirement reason could delay payment of retirement benefits. 

The full list of retirement options, in the order they appear on Fusion, are as follows: 

  • Retirement – Actuarially Reduced Retirement (Teacher PS only aged 55 to 59) – available to members of TPS only
  • Retirement – Age (Teachers Pension Scheme) – available to members of TPS only
  • Retirement – Ill Health Retirement – available to TPS and LGPS members but only alongside a formal ill health retirement decision
  • Retirement – Phased – available to members of TPS only
  • Retirement – Voluntary Aged 60 or Over
  • Retirement – Voluntary/Early Retirement – Under 60 

AskHR helpdesk support

AskHR is our customer service helpdesk for all people-related matters, supporting employees, managers, former employees, future employees and job candidates and can offer advice and support for queries about the following:

  • Salary payments, deductions, and tax issues
  • People policies, procedures, and entitlements, including absence management
  • Employees benefits and entitlements such as pensions, benefit schemes and allowances

Please raise your concern with your line manager first or submit a Service Request on Oracle Fusion and AskHR will respond within three working days. For further support and guidance please contact the AskHR advice line on 01772 535355 (8am – 5pm). 

Useful information, support and links

Payroll deadlines 2025

Please make sure all payment claims are completed in line with our published payroll deadlines to guarantee changes are made in time for pay day.

Payroll feedback 

If you would like to give any feedback to our Payroll team, email  payroll-feedback@lancashire.gov.uk.