The question gets asked from both sides of the payslip. Someone who has changed jobs wants to know whether the deduction follows them, and payroll wants to know whether they are supposed to pick up where the last employer left off.

Here is what does and does not carry over, when the new duty begins, and what payroll is being asked to do. What happens to a wage arrestment if you leave your job takes the leaving side of the same question.

Because it was served on one employer and attached the earnings that employer paid. Section 47(2) keeps an arrestment in effect only until the debtor has ceased to be employed by that employer.

A schedule binds the employer it is served on

Section 47(1) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 puts the duty on the employer served with the schedule. That is the whole reason nothing passes from one business to another.

What an earnings arrestment schedule is covers the document and who serves it, and an employer’s legal duties for a wage arrestment sets the duty out in order.

What that leaves for the creditor to do

Trace where the debtor now works, and serve a fresh schedule on that employer. Until that happens there is no arrestment running against the new employment.

That is not a way of ending the debt, and whether you can stop a wage arrestment by changing jobs deals with the tactic question separately.

What payroll should be looking for

The thing that creates the duty is an earnings arrestment schedule served on your business. That is what payroll acts on.

The balance follows, through the creditor. The schedule, the duty and the old employer’s records do not.

Item by item

The precondition comes round again

An earnings arrestment does not take effect unless the creditor gave you a debt advice and information package no earlier than 12 weeks before the schedule was served, under section 47(3).

It attaches to the service of a schedule rather than to the debt, so a fresh service brings it back into play. That is a point about the creditor’s step rather than about payroll’s.

On the date the schedule is served on that employer, which is the date the arrestment takes effect under section 47(2). The deduction then belongs to each pay day falling while it has effect.

The first pay day after service

Section 47(1) requires a deduction on every pay day, so the calculation belongs to the next available payroll run after service.

The employee cannot buy time from payroll and payroll cannot give it. Any request for more time belongs with the creditor or a money adviser.

A part period is still a period

The table is applied to the net earnings actually paid for that period, so a short first period produces a smaller figure and can fall in the nil band. What happens if you earn below the threshold covers what a nil period does and does not do.

A nil deduction does not end the arrestment or reset anything. The calculation is simply run again at the next pay day.

How long it then runs for

Until the debt is paid or otherwise extinguished, until the employment ends, or until the arrestment is recalled or abandoned. How long a wage arrestment lasts covers the duration question.

The same as any other employer would. The sum comes from the Schedule 2 tables applied to net earnings for the period, and nothing about the employee’s circumstances enters the calculation.

The figure the table is applied to

Net earnings is pay for the period after income tax, National Insurance primary class 1 contributions, pension scheme contributions and a priority child maintenance deduction from earnings order. What counts as net earnings sets out the four items with their paragraphs.

The current tables were substituted into Schedule 2 by the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, in force since 6 April 2025.

The thresholds, and two worked figures

Net earnings not exceeding £750.00 a month, £172.61 a week or £24.66 a day produce no deduction at all. Net monthly earnings of £749.00 therefore produce nothing.

Net monthly earnings of £1,800.00 produce £172.50, and net weekly earnings of £400.00 produce £36.85. How much they can take from your wages sets out every band.

Frequency, rounding and the £1.00 charge

There is no fortnightly table. Fortnightly pay is normally handled using the daily table or by applying the weekly table to each week in the period, following your own payroll guidance.

An employer may deduct £1.00 per deduction as an administration charge, taken from the employee’s pay on top of the arrested amount. It comes off after the deduction has been calculated rather than before it.

Before service there is nothing to operate. After service there is a statutory duty with no discretion in it.

The two positions, side by side

What the employee sees change

The useful questions to put to payroll are which instrument the deduction is under and which net earnings figure the table was applied to. Whether a wage arrestment shows on your payslip sets those out with what each answer establishes.

An employer cannot refuse a valid schedule, because failing to operate one makes them liable for the sums that should have been deducted. Raising a genuine error is a different thing altogether.

A query is not a refusal

Where the arrestment does not relate to the business or to anyone who has worked for it, the point goes in writing to the creditor, or to the sheriff officer firm that served it. What an employer should do if they receive an arrestment schedule sets out the sequence.

Sheriff officers are officers of the court, appointed by and accountable to the sheriff, and the sheriff court service sits behind the process.

What has no bearing on the duty

That the employee has asked for more time, that they are disputing the debt, or that they cannot manage the deduction. None of those gives payroll a power it does not otherwise have.

The routes that actually end an arrestment are statutory, and stopping a wage arrestment once it has started sets them out for the employee.

Only one diligence against earnings can operate against the same employment at a time, with a current maintenance arrestment able to run alongside an ordinary earnings arrestment.

A second ordinary creditor has to apply, not serve

They apply for a conjoined arrestment order, which the sheriff clerk administers. The employer pays the sheriff clerk, who distributes the money among the creditors involved.

Whether you can have more than one at the same time works through the combinations, including the current maintenance arrestment exception.

Two jobs are two employments

The one-at-a-time rule applies to a single employment. Separate employments are treated separately, and each is a separate service on a separate employer.

Where a child maintenance deduction from earnings order or a direct earnings attachment is also in play, the DWP publishes an employer’s guide to direct earnings attachments, and which arrestment takes priority sets out the sequence and keeps the protected floors apart.

A gap in deductions is a gap in collection rather than a reduction in the debt. The balance, the fees and any interest are unchanged while a creditor traces a new employer.

Your job is not at risk because of it

There is no law allowing an employer to dismiss someone for having a wage arrestment, and whether your employer can sack you for having one covers the position, including regulated roles where fitness and propriety checks apply.

Only payroll and whoever processes the paperwork need to know. Whether your colleagues find out covers who sees what.

What to do with the gap

An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops an existing earnings arrestment and freezes interest, fees and charges.

Where wages are out of reach a creditor holding the right authority can use a bank arrestment instead, attaching only the balance above the £1,000 protected minimum balance fixed on the face of the statute since 1 November 2022.

Free advice, and a written balance from the creditor, are the two useful steps. How you stop a wage arrestment in Scotland sets out each statutory route, and the schemes are registered with the Accountant in Bankruptcy.