Payroll Officer

Purpose and context Part of IPSA’s role as Parliamentary regulator is to provide a seamless, exemplary payroll service to MP’s, their staff, as well as IPSA people. Our work requires patience, diplomacy and attention to detail as we interact with our stakeholders on a daily basis, ensuring the best quality service is provided. This role is the first point of contact for all payroll enquiries into the organisation from MP’s and their staff. Payroll Officers need to be highly motivated and engaged when interacting with all internal and external stakeholders, so being an effective communicator is key.

The role also plays an important part in inducting and educating customers on IPSA’s systems and processes and offers significant opportunity to contribute to the continuous improvement of operational activity that supports achievement of IPSA’s strategic objectives.

Key responsibilities • Responsible for ensuring MPs’ staff allocated are paid correctly and on time through the effective monitoring of the payroll. Maintain key performance indicator target of 99.75% accuracy each month. To be a team player by recognising and supporting the whole team to achieve results and to ensure that payroll records are maintained in accordance with “The Scheme” and HR policies, updating work procedures accordingly. • To provide best possible customer service through answering calls within 20 seconds and emails within three working days to provide the best possible customer service for internal and external stakeholders. Record all calls received on Engage. • To assist with any payroll system testing required in order to ensure that the software meets both operational expectations outlined at the time and statutory obligations. • Adhere to all HMRC payroll legislation, ensure own knowledge and skills are kept up to date routinely. • To understand and comply with all aspects of pensions automatic enrolment for MPs’ Staff. • Proactively identify opportunities to improve systems and processes whilst ensuring data integrity and security is actively maintained. • To offer and provide assistance to MPs with their staffing budget expenditure projections and forecast scenarios. Contact MPs with forecast overspends and seek recovery of monies if overspent. • Attend and present 1:1 meetings/drop in sessions/roadshows (which may involve occasional travel outside of London), when required and provide necessary payroll/staff budget management training to MP’s and their offices when requested. • Reflecting IPSA’s values of staying connected, seeing the bigger picture, being open, doing the right thing and making a difference through all that you do. IPSA is a learning organisation. We constantly review our work against our customer’s need and assess the environment in which we operate so that we can continuously improve. Therefore, the list of key responsibilities may adapt and change over time within the spirit and nature of organisational change and the development of the role. Job description

We are looking for a new Payroll Officer to help us deliver our seamless regulatory service. We’re a payroll team of thirteen and we sit within the finance function, but your role will be visible across IPSA and will have direct, regular contact with our customers where building successful partnerships is key. If you like to be challenged and enjoy working in a dynamic environment, then this could be the job for you. The role will help to make a difference to our customers everyday by providing timely and accurate payroll information and resolving issues efficiently and effectively. There’s a lot of scope for you to enable change and improvement across the team and our day-to-day operations.

Payroll Officer’s responsibilities include:

• Ensuring MPs’ staff are paid accurately and on time.
• Maintaining payroll records in accordance with The Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs and HR policies and procedures.
• Building open and honest relationships with all teams and acting as the face of Payroll across IPSA.
• Providing exemplary, seamless service to our customers, internally and externally.
• Enabling your colleagues to achieve results through brilliant teamwork.
• Collaborating with other teams to resolve payroll queries, ensuring teams are provided with appropriate and timely advice and information.
• Ensuring financial controls are maintained by IPSA and MPs.
• Actively contributing to continuous improvement of the payroll function and helping to improve IPSA.

Person specification

You’ll have experience of working in a payroll team and understand how HMRC legislation applies to payroll, pensions and other statutory payments, as well as basic finance and budget management skills. We’d like you to be a qualified payroll technician through the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) but if you’re not, we’ll support you through a development pathway. You’ll be adept at understanding and communicating complex and challenging financial information to people of all levels, both within IPSA and to our customers. You’ll be curious about the payroll data to ensure it’s right first time, every time. You’ll have an eye for accuracy and attention to detail and you’ll own your work. You’ll enjoy working with others and be accountable for achieving great results.

You’ll be joining a diverse and knowledgeable bunch of people, passionate about making IPSA brilliant and so you’ll need to fit right in.

Above all, you’ll live and breathe IPSA’s values and be able to demonstrable how your experience and ways of working align with these.

From day one of joining IPSA, you will start to benefit from our generous salary package, which increases as you develop in your role. How quickly you progress depends entirely on you and how you perform. You will also immediately receive other benefits, outlined below.

Location

We’re a hybrid organisation with employees working in all corners of the UK. We have an office in central London which you can work from, although we welcome applications from all across the UK, offering flexible homeworking on UK mainland locations (which includes Northern Ireland).

Benefits

• A competitive salary which increases as you develop in your role and is regularly benchmarked against industry.
• Hybrid and flexible working, with occasional travel to our London office for team meetings
• Generous contributions into a ‘Civil Service’ pension.
• 25 days holiday entitlement (+ bank holidays), increasing by 1 day each year up to 30 days.
• Option to purchase additional holiday days each year.
• Access to learning and development tailored to your role with coaching opportunities.
• Working in a high-performing organisation which supports democracy with a great team ethic.
• A culture encouraging equity, diversity and inclusion.
• Time in your work to time to participate in our inclusive workplace networks.
• Mental Health First Aid network and access to our EAP
• Enhanced family leave provisions
• Workplace awards programme for living IPSA’s values and innovative ideas.
• Season ticket/rent deposit loans.
• Cycle to work scheme.
• Volunteering days and ‘you’ time.
• £31,000 - £32,778 per year

Our commitment and values

We’re committed to making IPSA a brilliant place to work and at the heart of our people philosophy is our promise to engage, enable and empower every member of our team to deliver excellence, learn and develop each day. Through a diversity of backgrounds, experience and thought IPSA will continue to be a high-performing organisation with a truly diverse and inclusive culture. We’re guided by our values and live and breathe them through all the work that we do. These are Staying Connected, Seeing the Bigger Picture, Being Open, Doing the Right Thing and Making a Difference. As a values-based organisation you can expect these to feature throughout the recruitment process and beyond

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is People working with government assets must complete checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service