Payroll Administrator

We want talented and enthusiastic people from all backgrounds to join #TeamMWL, with us you can learn, grow and develop yourself and your career, realising your true ambitions and aspirations. Whatever you’re looking for in your career, you’ll find it here at MWL.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a well organised, comprehensive, and highly motivated Payroll Administrator within a well established and continuously growing Employment Services Department, who currently provide payroll services for 80,000 + members of the NHS community across England each month! We are able to offer agile working with a 2 days minimum on site once training is complete – Equipment will be provided.

Please note, interviews may include assessment tasks. Please Note: Under UK law, we are unable to sponsor candidates for VISAs for this position. Therefore, applicants must have the right to work in the UK without the need for sponsorship.

Interview Date - To Be Confirmed

Main duties of the job

Your role will be to work alongside our Payroll Officers to accurately update the payroll system with changes to pay and pension contributions etc. To produce accurate and prompt salary payments to all staff, you will analyse, investigate, and resolve queries and discrepancies, and liaise with our customers providing advice as required. Full training will be provided by our in-house Training team, who will guide and support you as you start your Payroll Professional journey. Attention to detail is essential, as is providing excellent customer service- first time every time! Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal and the ability to build effective working relationships at all levels is a must.

Working for our organisation

Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust serves a population of over 600,000 with a workforce of over 9000 dedicated and skilled staff across 21 sites. We strongly believe that the communities we serve should all have access to Five Star Patient Care.

Our Services:

• Acute Care Providing emergency and maternity services at Whiston, Southport and Ormskirk hospitals, and medical and surgical specialties across all our sites.
• Primary Care Providing primary care services at Marshalls Cross Medical Centre situated in St Helens Hospital.
• Community Services Providing adult community services for St Helens and a wheelchair service in Chorley, South Ribble, and West Lancashire.
• Specialist Regional Services We provide the Mersey Regional Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit at Whiston Hospital and the Spinal Injuries Unit at Southport Hospital to more than 4 million people across the whole of Merseyside, West Lancashire, Cheshire, Isle of Man and North Wales.

Achievements:

• Rated Outstanding by CQC Inspection August 2018
• Top 100 places to work in the NHS (NHS Employers & Health Service Journal)
• National Preceptorship Accreditation (2023) for Nursing & AHP Preceptorship Programme

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

PAYROLL PROCESSING

• Plans own workload to ensure completion of workload within client accounts by payroll deadlines.
• Process payroll and salary sacrifice as per client SLAs.
• Make accurate and authorised payments, promptly and courteously resolving any queries.
• Maintain payroll-related records including Income Tax, National Insurance, Pensions, Occupational and Statutory Sick and Maternity /Paternity Pay, Adoption leave and Family Tax Credits and any other relevant payments or deductions.
• Process manual calculations based on the above as required.
• Calculation of reimbursement of staff travel and subsistence and associated expenses in accordance with strict processing timetables.
• Applying and adhering to processes and terms and conditions, and identifying any anomalies outside of standard process, referring any unknown or ambiguous areas to the Payroll Team Leader.
• Make regular and systematic checks of permanent and temporary changes in accordance with the payroll procedures and undertake ad‑hoc validation at the direction of the Payroll Team Leader.
• Provide information to the Payroll Team Leader as required to enable the reconciliation of the payroll control accounts and pay advances.
• Ensure payroll information is clearly explained when dealing with and ensure queries are handled courteously and confidentially within agreed departmental standards and response times.

MAIN DUTIES

• Always maintain confidentiality and security of information.
• Identify discrepancies, unusual features or queries at any point in the payroll process and either resolve or refer to the Payroll Team Leader for guidance.
• Ensure all documentation is filed in accordance with departmental procedures and that stored material is readily retrievable to respond to queries and for audit purposes.
• Ensure all requests for payroll processing meet the authorisation level for that account and escalate to client if not.
• Participate in payroll processing ensuring timescales are met, payroll policies and procedure are followed, and all information is accurate and up to date.
• Be fully conversant with the effective utilisation of the payroll system, including data entry, system navigation and report generation.
• Validate all output from the payroll process to ensure all payments have been paid correctly.
• Process appropriate reports, schedules and documents and distribute as required.
• Complete the current payroll documentation to allow the timely and accurate processing of each period’s payments through BACS.
• Application of appropriate client terms and conditions of employment relating to travel and subsistence.
• Provision of advice and guidance to Managers and staff regarding applicable client regulations relating to travel and associated expenses.
• Application of Statutory regulations regarding expense reimbursement.
• Ensure compliance with submission of year‑end returns including production and distribution of P11D’s and associated end of year returns.
• Administration and maintenance of Trust vehicle and driver insurance policy.
• Process salary sacrifice schemes.

ACCOUNT/CUSTOMER SERVICE

• Attend meetings with client accounts as required.
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with client accounts, other individuals of the directorate, other officers of the Trust, colleagues from the NHS Executive, Pension Agency and officers from other agencies to ensure the delivery of a professional service focused on achieving a high level of customer satisfaction.
• Effectively liaise with agencies and statutory bodies on all matters relating to payroll function.
• Effectively liaise with Finance colleagues on all matters relating to the payroll function.
• Respond promptly and courteously to all correspondence and enquiries from individuals, statutory bodies and requests for information from banks, building societies, or other appropriate organisations.
• Participate effectively and promptly in the provision and analysis of accurate financial, statistical and management information.
• Advise managers and staff on local and national regulations and completion of payroll documentation.
• Provide information and, if appropriate, advice on all matters related to pay, service conditions and the NHS Pension Scheme, accurately, promptly and courteously.
• As required undertake additional administrative and other duties commensurate with your grade to meet the reasonable needs of the client, as determined by departmental management.

SERVICE IMPROVEMENT

• Contribute to the overall effectiveness of the team, of the payroll department as a whole and of the Trust.
• Provide on‑going contributions and make recommendations to the Payroll Team Leader for improvements and developments in the payroll systems and procedures.

CLINICAL & PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

• Adhere to relevant payroll legislation that governs payroll processes.
• Provide cover during periods of annual leave/sickness absence.
• Comply with all legal requirements, including the Data Protection Act and Freedom of Information requests.

TEACHING & TRAINING RESPONSIBILITIES

• Maintain own compliance with the Trusts mandatory and statutory training requirements.
• Demonstrate activities in own area to new staff.
• Develop skills and competencies of self through training and development activities, ensuring that progress is maintained, and future needs identified and actioned.

Person specification

Qualifications

• CIPP/NVQ level 3 or ECDL/equivalent qualification and/or equivalent experience.

Knowledge and Experience

• Knowledge of payroll procedures.
• Experience of using an electronic payroll system.
• Experience of working in a customer service environment.
• Knowledge of legislation applicable to payroll.
• Knowledge of NHS payroll procedures and legislation.
• Experience of processing NHS payroll.

Skills

• Able and willing to use own initiative.
• Able to maintain strict confidentiality.
• Confident to handle enquiries from all levels of staff.
• Able to deliver high levels of productivity.

Other

• Eager to learn and develop skills and knowledge.
• Flexible attitude to work.
• Able to work as an effective team member and work alone.
• Adaptable to change.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion

We actively cultivate a professional environment of fairness, equality, dignity, and respect for all individuals. We welcome individuals from all backgrounds and value the unique skills, perspective and experience you bring. We are grounded in the belief that diversity enhances our collective strength, fostering innovation and excellence within our workforce. We welcome all applications irrespective of people’s race, disability, gender, sexual orientation, religion/belief, age, gender identity, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy/maternity and in particular those from under‑represented groups.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we commit to offering an interview to all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

If you are having difficulty completing an online application, or require any disability reasonable adjustments, to the application process, please contact.

We also commit to offering an interview to all armed forces veterans who meet the minimum criteria for the job (the essential criteria) listed in the personal specification. If you wish to apply under this Guaranteed Interview Scheme, please indicate this on the online application form.

The Trust operates anonymous shortlisting where no personal information about you, including your name or personal details are shared with the recruiting manager. No equality information is shared at any time during the recruitment process with the recruiting manager or other people involved in the decision‑making process.

The equality monitoring information you provide is used in the following situations: to review our recruitment practices; where a job is limited to a specific person…

Certificate of Sponsorship

Following the recent update on UK immigration policy for those on a Health and Care Visa or Skilled Worker Visa, please check your eligibility before applying for this post as we may be unable to provide sponsorship.

eVisa Update

For successful candidates on selected work and study visa routes, who have completed and paid for their applications will no longer receive a visa vignette in passport as evidence of their permission to enter the UK. Instead, you will be issued with an eVisa only, which is accessed by creating a UKVI account.

Before travelling to the UK, we advise applicants to understand how to generate an eVisa share code.

Disclosure and Barring Service Check

If this post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions. Please note if applicable, applicants will be required to pay for their DBS check. Costs are deducted from salary following appointment. If you have not already done so, you are therefore encouraged to enrol for the DBS Update Service to which a small annual fee of £13 per year applies.

Flexible Working

We actively support flexible working patterns throughout MWL. Changes made to the NHS Terms and Conditions of Service Handbook mean that all employees have the right to request flexible working from day one of employment. There is no limit on the number of requests they can make. Employees have the right to make requests, have them considered, regardless of the reason. At Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, we will consider requests for flexible working. We would also encourage you to also discuss flexible working options at interview stage.

Working for Team MWL

Staff recognition is especially important to us; as well as performance reviews and appraisals, we recognise staff through Employee of the month. Along with supporting you to achieve your career goals we offer a generous pension scheme, unsocial hours payments (where applicable), 27 days annual leave on commencement (pro rata) and access to a range of NHS discounts. Our Staff Health and Wellbeing programme offer a variety of services. The Trust is a non‑smoking across all our sites. Failure to follow this rule could lead to disciplinary action.

For more information, see the Smoke Free NHS website. You will be expected to undertake the Trusts' commitment to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. You must ensure that your application, including personal statements and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experience of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own. The Trust will not accept applications which are found to be AI generated and will check all applications against AI detection software.

Additional Information

Before applying, we encourage you to review the Trusts Values and Behaviours which are We are KIND, We are OPEN, We are INCLUSIVE. An applicant guide to help and support you with your application and what to expect during your recruitment journey can be accessed in the supporting documents. Good luck with your application. We hope to welcome you to Team MWL very soon.