How Multiple Court Orders Are Processed

When multiple court orders exist for an employee, the payroll process determines the order in which the deductions are calculated.

An employee can only have one of these court order types at any time:

• Earnings Arrestment

• Current Maintenance Order

• Conjoined Arrestment Order

Settings That Affect Processing Order

This processing hierarchy applies to all court orders used in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. See Processing Rules for Scotland, later in this topic, for details on order types used in Scotland.

• Element Priority

  The payroll process calculates the involuntary deductions in the order determined by their element's predefined processing priority as shown in this table:

  Secondary Classification	Priority
  Attachment of Earnings Order Fines	7550
  Attachment of Earnings Order Non-Priority	7800
  Attachment of Earnings Order Non-Priority Northern Ireland	7800
  Attachment of Earnings Order Priority	7550
  Attachment of Earnings Order Priority Northern Ireland	7550
  Child Maintenance Service Deduction from Earnings Order	7550
  Conjoined Arrestment Order	7600
  Council Tax Attachment of Earnings Order	7550
  Current Maintenance Arrestment	7650
  Deduction from Earnings Order	7550
  Earnings Arrestment	7650
  Direct Earnings Attachment	7850

  Caution: Don't change the priority for any involuntary deduction element.

• Date of Issue: Where multiple orders with the same priority exist, the payroll process calculates them in order of their date of issue. The issuing authority supplies the date of issue in each order. When you add a court order to an employee's Court Orders and Student Loans calculation card, you must enter this date.

• Date of Receipt: Where multiple orders with the same priority issued on the same date exist, the payroll process calculates them in order by date of receipt. Entering a receipt date is optional on the employee's calculation card. If you don't enter one, then 01 January 2001 is used as the receipt date. The payroll process first calculates the orders with no receipt date.

• Element Entry ID: If all receipt dates on the calculation card are blank or all have the same date, the payroll processes them in order by Element Entry ID. The lowest ID is processed first. When you create the element entry, this ID is automatically generated.

Caution: Don't change the formulas, processing rules, and priority levels associated with the elements as they're predefined based on legislative rules.

How Protected Earnings Rate Affect Orders

Based on the court order type, the payroll process calculates each court order in sequence or in isolation. For some orders, the deduction can't reduce the pay amount below the protected earnings rate (PER). But different order types may have different PERs, and a deduction for one order may reduce the pay below the PER for an earlier order.

Here are three sample court orders with different PERs that illustrate the processing sequence:

Sequence	Scenario	Action
1	Attachment of Earnings Priority order has a PER of GBP 1000.	Deduction is taken, leaving over GPB 1,000 of pay.
2	Council Tax Arrestment of Earnings Order has its PER effectively built in to the calculation.	Full deduction is taken, even if pay is reduced below the PER from the earlier AEO.
3	Deduction from Earnings Order has a PER of GBP 800.	Deduction is taken even though it reduces pay below the PER from the earlier AEO.

The payroll process carries forward the highest PER, which in this case is GBP 1000, and uses this for any subsequent student loan calculation.

Processing Rules for Scotland

The payroll process calculates the Court orders in Scotland using this hierarchy:

1. As defined in the element priority, Deduction of Earnings Orders (DEOs) are processed first.

2. Earnings Arrestment (EA) and Current Maintenance Arrestment (CMA) orders are processed next, and have equal ranking. An employee can have only one EA and one CMA at any time.

   If arrestable earnings are insufficient to deduct both the EA and CMA orders in full, the payroll process apportions the deduction between them.

3. A Conjoined Arrestment Order (CAO) combines two or more debts of the same or different types (EAs, CMAs, or both), and replaces them with a single court order. Where a CAO is in force, no further EA or CMA is calculated. Before entering a CAO, you must first end any existing EA or CMA.

   If arrestable earnings are insufficient to cover all debts, the payroll process doesn't apportion the total deducted amount. The payee does the apportioning upon receipt of payment.