Is your payroll operation compliant?
19 October 2015
The CIPP Payroll Assurance Scheme
The CIPP Payroll Assurance Scheme (PAS) is designed to provide senior management, payroll teams and, of course, colleagues and customers in outsourced services and in-house departments with assurance that payroll processes, whether outsourced or in-house,
- Are fit for purpose
- Ensure timely and accurate payments
- Comply with all relevant legislation
- Are appropriate for dealing with organisational and legislative changes
The independent assessment of the processes, by a payroll professional, will also highlight areas for development and improvement. The assessment examines fourteen core areas of payroll and in total assesses sixty process areas.
Audits undertaken to date have highlighted three key risk areas which regularly come to the attention of the assessors:-
- Financial risk (to the employer as a result of opportunity for error and/or fraud)
- Incorrect payment to the employee (leading to distrust of the employer)
- Business continuity issues (astonishingly payroll is often excluded from BCP)
Key benefits of PAS
- Use of the PAS accreditation logo demonstrating that your organisation is dedicated to compliance and best practice in payroll
- Potential improvements in processes leading to greater effectiveness and efficiencies within the payroll function; which will also lead to overall time and cost savings for the organisation
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The CIPP Payroll Quality Partnership
The CIPPPayroll Quality Partnership (PQP) is an accreditation for organisations from all industry sectors who wish to achieve “best practice in the development of payroll people”.
Having ensured that your payroll operation is compliant why not ensure that your payroll people have appropriate learning and development opportunities in place to help to ensure that your payroll remains compliant? The PQP accreditation follows PAS quite naturally. The CIPP will support you initially in identifying what is required to achieve the accreditation and then it is largely down to you to put measures in place to encourage a “best practice” approach to maintaining professional competence by enhancing and developing payroll skills and knowledge within the function.
Key benefits of PQP
- Improved performance management leading to lower staff turnover and absence
- Increased payroll staff morale as the organisation invests in their development through focussed learning and development
- Increased efficiency and added value