What should I do if my pay is incorrect?

Overview

You might think that your pay is incorrect or you might not have actually been paid for the month. You should contact your school, HR department or local authority in the first instance. 

If you are unsatisfied with their response, and you are an Edapt subscriber, you can contact us for further advice and support.

In this article, we relay advice from Citizens Advice on how to rectify issues with your pay.

Check your payslip if you receive one

Citizens Advice explains that you should start by checking your payslip, if you’ve got one. This will help you see how your pay’s been worked out. Check things like:

• Whether you’ve been paid for the number of hours you’ve actually worked
• If you’ve been paid at the correct rate
• If you’ve been paid for overtime, commission or bonus
• Whether you’ve been paid any sick pay, holiday pay or maternity pay that you were expecting
• If your employer has deducted any money that you weren’t expecting

If you’re an employee, you have the legal right to a payslip which shows how your pay has been worked out.  If you get paid per hour, your payslip has to show how many hours you’ve worked.

If you don’t have a payslip or your payslip doesn’t show how your pay has been worked out, ask your employer to put this right.

You should act quickly, where possible, it’ll be much harder to get your money back after 3 months from the date the problem arose.

Pay incorrect: speak to your school

Citizens Advice explains try speaking informally to your employer if you’re having problems with your pay. You could also try speaking to your human resources or payroll department, if there is one.

Ask them to explain anything you don’t understand on your payslip or why you haven’t been paid. If you disagree with anything, explain why.

If your employer has made a genuine mistake, ask them to pay you the money you’re owed straight away. You shouldn’t have to wait until your next pay day.

We have published another article which provides advice on how to raise issues informally with your line manager.

Pay incorrect: I think I have paid too much tax

If you’ve just started a new job, you might pay tax through an emergency tax code. This could mean you get less money than you should until HM Revenue and Customs updates its records. Normally this will only be for a month or two at the most. 

If you’ve been in your job for more than 3 months and think your employer has taken too much money for tax, you’ll need to check your tax code and let HMRC know if it’s wrong on GOV.UK. 

Your pay will be adjusted so you pay the right amount of tax over the tax year.