1. When Do We Need a Policy?
If you’re a small business, the odds of someone being called up for jury service are fairly low. So it’s fine to wait to draw up a policy until someone receives a summons for the first time.
2. Why Do We Need a Policy?
While you’d be unlucky to have lots of employees called up on jury service, it’s important to treat staff consistently to avoid discrimination. So it’s advisable to have a policy you can refer to rather than treating each summons in an ad hoc way.
3. How Much Should We Pay?
It’s been reported that 95% of businesses keep paying staff on jury service, at least for a limited period. The maximum jurors can claim from the court is £64.95 a day for the first 10 days (half that if they attend for 4 hours or less), plus some travel and subsistence expenses. The amount is tax free but, even so, many employees will suffer a shortfall unless their employer steps in. It’s therefore usual to pay the employee the difference between their normal wages and the court allowance.
4. How Long Should We Keep Paying?
Although jury service usually lasts no more than 2 weeks, cases can overrun. Occasionally, trials can go on for months, although the court can normally predict this and will give jurors the opportunity
to be excused. From day 11 to day 200, jurors are entitled to an allowance of up to £129.91 and from day 201 this rises to £228.06 (again, half on days of 4 hours or under). If you have employees whose salary exceeds these more generous allowances, you should think about your approach to a long-running trial. A good way forward is to use this wording:
Jury Service Policy Contract Clause
‘Jury service usually lasts no more than 10 days. We will continue to pay you during this period at your normal rate of pay subject to deducting the loss-of-earnings allowance you will receive from the court. We retain the discretion to extend these payments if necessary.’
5. What Else Should the Policy Contain?
Your policy should:
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- Require employees to give you as much notice as possible if they’re called for jury service so you can plan for their absence.
- Give you the right to ask the employee to apply to the court to defer or refuse the summons. If giving the employee time off would seriously harm your business, they may be excused if you provide an explanatory letter. However, they can only delay once in a 12-month period.
- Require the employee to attend work on any days when they’re not required in court and (depending on commuting distances) on short days.
6. How Does Adjusting the Employee’s Pay Work
With their jury summons, the employee will receive a Certificate
of Loss of Earnings or Benefit. You should ask them to give this
to their line manager or the payroll team, who must fill in details
of their earnings and return it to the individual. They should then
give it to the court on their first day of jury service.
There are various ways to manage the adjustment to the employee’s
pay. However, one common method is to continue paying them as
normal until the court service processes their loss-of-earnings payment.
When they return to work, they should bring the remittance
advice from the court and you can then deduct this amount (excluding
expenses) from their net normal average earnings in the
next payroll run. This method means you can check the exact payments
the employee received before making the deductions (given
that they may well not serve 10 full days). It also ensures they won’t
be disadvantaged while they wait for the court to pay them.TIP:
It is automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for taking time
off for jury service. However, there is an exception: dismissal is
lawful if the employee’s absence was likely to cause substantial
harm to your business and they unreasonably refused to apply
to be excused from serving