So far over a third of NHS Trusts live on ESR will offer the Pennies from Heaven scheme to employees - is your Trust involved?

‘Pennies from Heaven’ is now an option for all NHS Organisations as the new Electronic Staff Record (ESR) has been configured to support the scheme. The response from Trusts so far has been overwhelming with over a third looking to launch the scheme to employees in early 2007. Many more Trusts have approved the scheme and are consulting with staff councils to get their agreement and involvement. Did you know that if all employers in the NHS gave the spare pennies from their payslips they would raise £8.6m per year for charity?

The purpose of this site is to provide NHS Organisations and their staff with more information on Pennies from Heaven. A guidebook and publicity flyer can be downloaded from the links at the top of this page.

What is Pennies from Heaven?

• Quite simply, net salaries are rounded down to the nearest pound with the spare pennies donated to charity. The most anyone can give per payslip is £0.99 and all donations are eligible for gift aid which means an additional 28% is added by the government.


• Each Organisation chooses one benefiting charity which can be changed annually - For example, you may wish to nominate a national charity or your local hospice.


• The average take up of the scheme is 25% – 2000 employees could raise up to £15,000 p.a - see the pennies really do add up!


• The scheme is complimentary to all other forms of ‘payroll giving’ - affordable and accessible enabling employers to achieve high sign up rates.


• All NHS Organisations will be able to run Pennies from Heaven following their ESR ‘go live’ date.

How do I, as an NHS Organisation, offer this to my staff?

• 3 months after your ESR ‘go live’ date your Organisation will be contacted by Pennies from Heaven and invited to join the scheme. We will talk you through the scheme in more detail and work with you to launch the scheme locally. ESR has already been configured to run the scheme which means no expensive IT changes.


• Following your agreement to run the scheme and your nomination of a benefiting charity, Pennies from Heaven will act as your point of contact throughout. You will have access to a range of communication material including:
  Tailored poster and application form templates showing your charity’s logo’s, which you will be able to copy for your internal communications.
  Website material for your local NHS site including a downloadable application form.
  Best practice tips and guidance on how to maximise participation.


• Pennies from Heaven pay the charity and provide audit trails on your behalf.


• There is no direct charge to your Organisation, or the NHS, for running the scheme, the charge is deducted at source. This deduction is 7% of funds donated which works out an average of just 42p per employee per year and remember all donations are eligible for gift aid meaning a further 28% is added by the government.


• For a more detailed overview of the scheme and how it can be set up in your Organisation please click on the guidebook link.

How do I, as an NHS employee, sign up?

• 3 months after your ESR ‘go live’ date your Organisation will be invited to join the scheme. If they decide to offer the scheme they will communicate to you about the scheme with details of sign up etc.

1. Flag the Pennies from Heaven (PFH) participant on ESR	Applications are sent to Payroll where manual input is done only once into ESR. ESR will recognise the element name ‘Charitable reductions NHS’ and switch on the scheme for that participant.
2. Display the donation made on participants payslips	This is done automatically by ESR.
3. Transfer donations monthly to PFH	This will be set up as part of the Finance departments local ledger feed. Monthly, a deduction schedule will be reconciled to the ledger and one electronic payment made to Pennies from Heaven.
4. Store the participants application form	For gift aid purposes a record of the signed consent form will need to be stored for 6 years.
5. Store participant donation records and produce an annual gift aid report	A separate report entitled Pennies from Heaven will be made available before the current financial year end to meet this requirement. The trust will then store this on their local server. This is done so that the charity can claim an additional 28% of the funds donated from the government.

How does it work on ESR?

• ESR has already been configured to run Pennies from Heaven. Much of the set up and running process has been automated to make it simple for you to do. There are five key steps:

Questions and Answers

• For further questions and answers about the scheme please click on the guidebook link.


• A flyer can also be downloaded. This is designed as a double sided A4 flyer so print on both sides and fold.