Jury service - Payment (loss of earnings)

[postman15]

Dear all,

I received a letter recently requesting for me to participate in jury service in couple of months time.

Has anyone recently gone through this and what is the process?
Someone told me that RM will pay me the money as a loan which I need to claim from the courts and pay back RM.

Thanks in advance

[gfte]

I was called up in January (though ultimately wasn't needed to actually attend).

Royal mail no longer pay while on jury duty, but do offer a loan whike waiting on expenses to be paid out. Im in Scotland so the exact process may vary. I got a form from the courts online and my tl submitted it online or by email.

Our DOM was also able to get folk excused through December, if you were wanting out of it.

[ted_e_bear]

Have a look on the people app and select the RMG people policy tile (it's only on the robin version now)
Then select "time off and holidays" followed by "Time off work"

It's in there starts at page 33 I've tried to copy the direct link to the section, it might work.

https://view.pagetiger.com/rmg-time-off-work-procedure

[postman15]

Thanks for the replies. I'll check the link and proceed accordingly.

[BenacreNick]

Yeah Postman 15, this is my experience from about 7/8 years ago.

RM will continue to pay your wages for now, however, when you finish your jury service, the courts will reimburse you for your time plus lunch allowance (£5 daily perhaps).

At that point RM Sheffield will want re-imbursing the money they paid to you.

It's not quite that simple though, because RM's wages are higher than the courts expenses, so you could be left with a shortfall to recover. Especially if you are assigned to a difficult case which for example lasts 12 weeks (bigger shortfall to find between the wages disparity).

If this has changed then I apologise, but this was my experience.

Best of luck with your jury service.

[postman15]

Well 10 days I can tolerate but if it's more can I inform the jury service about the financial hardships this will cause. I have a mortgage and other expenses and might struggle.

[BenacreNick]

Probably not as they could remind you of your "civic duty".

I would probably send a note to RM Wages in Sheffield explaining your jury service dates and if there is anything else they need from you.

Another point to consider is travel, luckily for me the court is over the road from the delivery office, so there was no additional expense incurred, but if you need to catch a bus/train then that's something else to think about as well.

I think you will be ok. Please let us know how it goes.

[Zicomurphy]

I done jury service 2 years ago and it was all quite straightforward. Inform your line manager and they should inform HR and then HR will write to you directly explaining how the process works and sending you any forms you need to fill in. From what I can remember you should continue to be paid in full by Royal Mail and you claim loss of earnings from the court and you only need to repay the amount the court pays you. You should not end up out of pocket.

You should also be able to claim travel expenses from the court and there is also a small daily payment for food. Be aware that while all the forms you fill in to claim these various things are physical paper forms you have to submit them by taking a photo of them and then emailing them to the court along with your juror number.

On your first morning you will be told if there are any trials that are scheduled to last a long time and there will be another form to fill in if you have genuine reasons why you wouldn’t be able to attend court for that length of time and want to apply to be excused.

[BenacreNick]

Thanks Zico, it looks like the process has advanced slightly from 7/8 years ago.

I remember the sandwich man coming round in the morning and I was ready with my £5 lunch allowance.

[Hitcher]

It's a lot of sitting around doing absolutely nothing so take things to keep yourself occupied.

The last one I did a few years ago we were sat around waiting for about 4-5 hours each day for 3 days running only to be sent home each time without setting foot inside the courtroom.