PAY ISSUES
New recruits to the Army are required to receive their salary direct to a bank of their choice. If you do not have a current bank account on arrival, arrangements can be made through the pay office to open one. You are reminded that all soldiers are required to work in arrears. What this means is that you are required to work 1 month before you are paid. However in practice you will initially be paid a minor sum weekly in cash until your pay account is transferred to your bank.
The transfer will not normally be effected until 1 month after your first pay statement has been produced. You will usually become a bank paid soldier between weeks 8 and 12. Until then you will remain cash paid by your Troop Commander in accordance with the programme illustrated at Table 1.
The cash payment process requires that your Troop Commander collect money from the Financial and Systems Administrator (FSA) who is a Staff Sergeant in the pay office. The Troop Commander will then hold a pay parade in your troop lines. The form, which he will require you to sign, is a receipt for the cash and is called an Acquittance Roll. It is in your interests to read the acquittance roll before you sign to ensure that the amount to be debited from your pay account is the same as the amount of cash which you are about to receive,
The usual amount which you will be paid is set at £50 per week (subject to reductions of up to 50% for recruits with financial commitments) the remainder of your pay will be held for you in ‘credits’ until your first bank payment. The reasons for setting your pay at this level are:
a. To enable you to make the transition to monthly pay and have sufficient pocket money for your immediate needs.
b. Limited secure facilities for cash safekeeping.
Those recruits who arrive with financial commitments must declare them to the pay staff during induction. Thereafter, until those individuals are bank paid, the pay staff have the facility to arrange for money to be transferred from your pay account to a nominated bank account via the Bank Automated Credit System (BACS) to enable those commitments to be met. Once an individual’s salary is being paid into the bank this facility will be withdrawn. IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU DECLARE FROM THE OUTSET ALL FINANCIAL COMMITMENTS. THIS WILL ENABLE YOUR PAY CLERK TO ENSURE THAT YOUR CREDITORS ARE PAID AND THAT YOU HAVE NO FINANCIAL DISTRACTIONS DURING YOUR TRAINING.
Because the transition to banking will take a minimum of 8 weeks to accomplish it follows that the sum accrued in your account will include your salary minus the cash payments made on acquittance rolls. Once the pay computer at Glasgow processes your pay to your bank account all of your accrued pay entitlement goes to your account. Effectively this means that the first bank payment any recruit receives will be unusually high, (between £900 - £1200).
The acquittance roll payments made to you during the month preceding the transition to bank, pay will be deducted from the amount due to your pay account and this will take effect when your second bank payment is made. If you fail to save a little of the first months high bank payment you may experience financial problems in the second month as this payment will be unusually low, (between £200 - £300). All recruits must be aware that once they become bank paid soldiers they will NOT receive any further cash payments from this, or any future unit Pay Office.
If you fail to make provision for the second month’s low bank payment it will result in you being short of money until you are bank paid at the end of the third month.
The third and subsequent bank payments to your account will be your normal monthly pay. If you have any queries regarding the system detailed above please contact the Pay Office via your Troop staff and we will be happy to advise you.
RECRUITS EXPECTED PAYMENTS DURING PHASE 1 TRAINING
You should expect to sign for the following amounts on Acquittance Rolls during your training at ATR Lichfield. The timings of the pay parade may vary slightly depending on the Training Programme. These payments may differ depending on whether we are making BACS transfers to your bank on your behalf, which can reduce the amount you are paid weekly. If you have any queries please ask your Pay Clerk.
Table 1
| 
