Your employee may be entitled to Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP) if they adopt a child. It replaces their normal earnings to help them take time off around the time that the child is placed with them.
Whether you will have to pay them SAP depends on how long they have worked for you, how much they earn and when the child was matched for adoption. They will also have to provide you with evidence of matching and give you notice of when they want you to start paying their SAP.
Payments of SAP count as earnings. You must deduct tax and National Insurance Contributions (NICs) from them in the usual way.
You will normally be able to recover some or all of the amounts you have to pay out as SAP.
ENTITLEMENTS
Adoption Leave is available to:
The Adopter is entitled to 52 weeks of statutory adoption leave. SAP is payable for 39 weeks.
SAP only becomes payable if the employee meets certain conditions. They must have:
Average Weekly Earnings
The calculation of the average weekly earnings is very important because it not only determines if the adopter qualifies for SAP but also how much they qualify for. To qualify for SAP, an employee must have average weekly earnings of at least the NIC LEL amount, £113.00 for 2017/18, in the relevant period up to the Matching Week.
How Much Do You Need To Pay
90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks of the adoption pay period, followed by the lower of 90% of average weekly earnings or £140.98 for the remaining weeks.
Recovery of SAP
All employers are entitled to recover 92% of SAP they pay, however if the employer qualifies for Small Employers Relief, where the total NIC in the qualifying tax year was under £45,000, they can recover 100% of SAP paid plus an additional 3% in compensation for the employer’s share of NIC due on these payments.
To access this utility, simply click 'Payroll' and select the employee’s name on the left:
If existing payment records have not been recorded in BrightPay, the automatic calculation performed by the program after completing the above may be inaccurate. In the event of this occurring, the user may override the AWE by doing the following:
Should an employee wish to extend or reduce the length of their adoption leave, the length of leave already entered for the employee can be edited as follows:
During the Adoption period, an employee can work 10 days without losing any SAP. These KIT days can be taken separately, consecutively or in a block. The employee may be paid for KIT days. If the employee exceeds 10 KIT days, this will result in the loss of SAP for the week in which the work is done.
To record Keeping In Touch Days in BrightPay:
1. Under Employees, select the employee from the listing and click their Calendar tab.
2. On the Calendar, select the date of the Keeping In Touch day and click 'Keep In Touch Day' on the right hand side
3. Repeat if further Keeping In Touch Days are taken
As soon as the number of Keeping In Touch Days recorded in the employee's calendar exceeds 10 days, BrightPay will notify you in the relevant pay period that the employee is not entitled to any SAP due to having taken their 11th (or higher) Keep In Touch day.
BrightPay uses the full statutory week method when calculating & applying SAP.
Monthly Payroll Example:
Adoption Leave begins on a Wednesday. Therefore the last day of the SAP week will be a Tuesday.
SAP will thus begin in the pay period in which the first Tuesday of the adoption leave falls
BrightPay will then establish how many Tuesdays fall in the pay period and apply the weekly SAP rate to the number of Tuesdays there are.
Weekly Payroll Example:
Adoption Leave begins on a Wednesday. Therefore the last day of the SAP week will be a Tuesday.
SAP will thus begin in the weekly pay period in which the first Tuesday of the adoption leave falls.
In the event that an employee is not entitled to SAP, employers are to complete form SAP1 to tell the employee the reason why.
Form SAP1 can be completed in BrightPay and subsequently printed or exported to PDF for emailing.
To complete form SAP1:
a) Within Employees, select the employee in question from the left hand listing
b) Click 'More' on the employee's menu bar, followed by 'SAP1...'
c) Complete the SAP1 form accordingly
d) Click Print/ Preview to view the completed form
e) Click Print or Export PDF, as required.
Need help? Support is available at 0345 9390019 or [email protected].