PAYE3010 - background: frameworks: about frameworks

This subject is presented as follows

Employments Framework

Citizen Identification Framework

Address Framework

Primary Tracing Framework

Secondary Tracing Framework

Employments Framework

The Employments Framework (EF) is a national database of employer and employment records. Its purpose is to hold details together in one place for each employer and taxpayer (main source and sub sources). The information is then available to view or update through the computer systems using the frameworks.

The EF holds employment information. It is important for you to understand what information is actually held there and how this is linked to taxpayer or employer records as this will affect a number of processes that you carry out in your day to day work.

The EF is structured to hold information at three different levels. The

• Top level is the employer or taxpayer
• Second level is the employment. This is defined as a period of time with a start date and the ability to hold an end date. It represents a period of time an individual was in the employment of an employer
• Third level is the basis attached to that employment. This represents the reason for the Department’s interest in that employment. There can be several basis attached to a single ‘employment’ and will consist of one or more of the following
• • PAYE (Pay As You Earn) indicating that the employment is paid above the lower earnings level (LEL) for tax and NIC and is of interest to PAYE processes
  • TC (Tax Credits) indicating that the employment is authorised to receive tax credits by the employer and is of interest to NTC
  • SL (Student Loans) indicating that the employment is a potential source of Student Loan deductions by the employer and is of interest to SLBS
  • JSAPS (Job Seekers Allowance Payments)
  • IB (Incapacity Benefit)

And

Employer records

It is assumed that all employments are of interest to the PAYE system and therefore most employments will have one or more PAYE basis. The only exception to this would be if all employments for an employer were paid below the LEL for tax and NIC but that employer was authorised to pay tax credits. In this situation the employment would only have TC basis attached to it.

In your day to day work when making changes to an employer record the fact that there are certain basis attached to it and the status of that basis will affect what you can or cannot do. For example you will be unable to cancel an employer record if there are any employments attached to it.

Taxpayer records

COP taxpayer records are held on 12 regional databases. When the Employments Framework was created from the COP databases, NINO duplications from across Regions had to be included to complete the framework. NICO Customer Validation Unit (CVU) has subsequently cleared the duplications.

When setting up new COP taxpayer records, you should

• Try to ensure the NINO is correct before entering it on the COP taxpayer record. Processing will validate the NINO or replace it with a Temporary Reference number

Or alternatively

• Use a Temporary Reference number, which will be picked up by CVU to
• • Establish the correct NINO
  • Update the record with the correct NINO

Citizen Identification Framework

The Citizen Identification Framework is a database of both current and historic basic personal details for PAYE and SA ‘Individual’ type taxpayers, tax credit applicants and any person acting in a capacity for those individuals. It does not hold details for employers.

TBS allows on-line access to these frameworks to

• View designatory details
• Enter and amend name details
• Enter and amend base (home) and nominated (correspondence) address details
• Enter and amend contact details, like telephone numbers and e-mail addresses
• Amend NINO and merge duplicate records, but only in selected specialist offices

The Citizen Identification Framework records the systems that have an interest in the information that it holds. For example

• PAYE (COP)
• Tax Credits
• Student Loans
• SA (‘Individual’ type records only)
• CB2 (Child Benefit)
• CTF (Child Trust Fund)
• IDMS (Integrated Debt Management System)

This means that when, for example, an address is updated in TBS, the framework passes that information on to other interested services to update the appropriate record or records.

Address Framework

The Address Framework

• Holds all addresses relevant to the business services that use it
• Allows you, online through the business service that you are using, to view an address and to access the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) to match a UK address to one stored on the PAF. You may store an additional line of address, over and above that shown in the PAF, to help with delivery of mail. Where you cannot match an address, or the address is outside the UK, you may enter and store an address as input

Primary Tracing Framework

The Primary Tracing Framework brings together information, including historical information, held on other frameworks to aid quick tracing of a record where the NINO is not known. Currently this framework supports TBS Function FIND TAXPAYER and some NTC functions. It does not support COP Function TI.

Secondary Tracing Framework

The Secondary Tracing Framework is a database created and updated with information from the NIRS2 computer system. As it contains information for all individuals held on NIRS2, it is a much broader database of individuals than Primary Tracing. It is used to validate NINOs, for example, where a new COP record is set up in Function MS.

TBS uses the Secondary Tracing Framework to validate NINOs when an attempt is made to amend a NINO in NICO Customer Validation Unit.