Last updated: April 2026

Review date: April 2027

Scheme Rules

Each participant in the scheme will be notified of a notional salary that will form the basis of any future salary reviews.

The Company reserves the right to withdraw the Salary Sacrifice Scheme at the end of the Company’s financial year which runs from 1st September to 31st August.

Gross salaries will be adjusted from the date of joining the Salary Sacrifice Scheme onwards. A sacrifice must not cause the rate of pay to be less than the prevailing minimum wage figure.

Drawbacks of Salary Sacrifice

As the sacrifice is a permanent alteration to the contract of employment, you will not have the right to revert to the original (higher) salary level; otherwise the sacrifice will not be valid in the eyes of the Inland Revenue and if they deem the sacrifice to be ineffective for any reason, then the contribution will be treated as a benefit-in-kind and could therefore increase tax and NI liabilities rather than reducing them.

However, in exceptional circumstances, if you are forced to revert to the original (higher) salary level, this can only be done via a mutually agreed variance of your contract in writing and cannot be subsequently rescinded. Such action may affect the taxation consequences of the original salary sacrifice as explained above.

Applications must be made in writing to the admin manager.

It must be remembered that, as the name of the Salary Sacrifice Scheme suggests, salary must be genuinely sacrificed, therefore any other benefits or transactions which are based on salary or the amount of National Insurance contributions made will be affected. For example:

Any borrowing levels, such as mortgage, credit card limits, personal loans etc, which are set in conjunction with the salary level, will be affected by the sacrifice.

Contribution-based State benefits such as Incapacity Benefit, Job Seekers’ Allowance and State Pension will be affected by any salary sacrifice, as will earnings related benefits such as Maternity Allowance and, where the revised salary falls between the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) and the Upper Earnings Limited (UEL), the State Second Pension.

Work related payments such as Statutory Maternity, Neonatal Care Pay, Adoption, Paternity or Sick Pay will also be adversely affected by a sacrifice. If the sacrifice reduces the salary to less than the LEL then entitlement to Basic State Pension would be affected.

Working Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit could also be affected by any sacrifice.