Time off for public duties

What to do when you are called for jury service:

1. The University will grant staff time off for jury service.  
2. If you are called for jury service you must inform your line manager and the Pay & Benefits team at payandbenefits@exeter.ac.uk.  
3. If jury service lasts for less than half a day, you must return to work for the remainder of the day, wherever practicable.  
4. You should keep your line manager regularly informed about how long you are likely to be away from work.
5. You must claim “loss of earnings” from Her Majesty’s Courts Service (HMCS). To do this, you should forward a HMCS “Certificate of Loss of Earning or Benefit” to the Pay & Benefits team for completion then pass the completed form to the Court.
6. To ensure that the you are not disadvantaged by any delay in the payment by the Court of loss of earnings, the University will continue to pay you your normal pay until you have received notification from HMCS of the loss of earnings.
7. You must send the original copy of the remittance advice sent by HMCS to the Pay & Benefits team immediately after you receive it. You are under a duty to notify payroll of all loss of earnings compensation received from HMCS. 
8. In accordance with the paragraph on jury service outlined in the Conditions of Employment, the University will make an adjustment to your salary so that your net pay (after statutory deductions) plus the loss of earnings compensation received from HMCS equals normal net pay. Pension contributions will not be affected. (No further authority to adjust pay is required since this is provided for within the Conditions of Employment.)

For example:

• Normal net pay is £1050 per calendar month;
• This month, you have received £50 loss of earnings from HMRC;
• Net pay this month is £1000 (ie a deduction of £50 is made to net pay after the application of all other deductions and reductions).

What to do do if you are called to be a witness:

Discuss and agree with your line manager whether you you will take annual leave or if it is possible you may be able to make the time up (it's unlikely to take a whole day) as you would for a hospital appointment.

If you haven't got annual leave then you may be able to take unpaid leave and can claim the money back from the court. For more information please refer to the government web pages. You obviously can only do this if you take unpaid leave as annual leave and making up the time are both paid.

Time off work for public duties

Employees can request a reasonable time off for public duties, for a description of appropriate public duties please refer to the government web pages. The time off must be agreed in advance and will be unpaid, although you could choose to take annual leave. 

Employees are legally allowed a reasonable time off to carry out magistrate duties. The time off must be agreed in advance and will be unpaid, although you could choose to take annual leave. You can claim a loss of earnings from the court. You obviously can only do this if you take unpaid leave as annual leave and making up the time are both paid. For more information please see the government web pages.