The four deductions are a closed list, which is the part that gets missed. Everything else on your payslip comes off after the arrestment has been calculated, not before.

Here is what falls on each side of that line, why the net figure is the one that counts, and what to do if the wrong figure has been used. What counts as net earnings takes the definition itself apart.

It means the deduction is worked out on your net earnings for the pay period. That is a defined figure in the Act rather than a general description of your take-home pay.

The four deductions that come off first

Income tax, National Insurance primary class 1 contributions, pension scheme contributions and a priority child maintenance deduction from earnings order come off first, and nothing else does. Section 73(1) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 names those four and stops.

Net earnings is not the same thing as take-home pay, and what counts as net earnings takes each of the four apart.

Where the dividing line falls

The tables the deduction is read from were substituted into Schedule 2 by the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 and have been in force since 6 April 2025.

The line is redrawn every pay day

Section 47(1) requires your employer to deduct a sum calculated under the Act from your net earnings on every pay day. So the before and after line is not drawn once at the start and left there.

Each pay period gets its own net earnings figure and its own trip through the table. A month with more pay in it lands in the same order of operations, on a bigger number.

A reading note on the National Insurance paragraph

Section 73(1)(b) still refers to primary class 1 contributions under Part I of the Social Security Act 1975. That Act was repealed and consolidated in 1992 and the cross-reference has never been updated.

Read the paragraph as National Insurance, primary class 1 contributions. The point is a drafting relic rather than anything that changes the sum.

Everything else. Student loan repayments, union dues, other deductions and the employer’s own administration charge all come out after the arrestment figure has been fixed.

The employer’s £1.00 administration charge

Your employer may take £1.00 per deduction as an administration charge. It comes out of your pay on top of the arrested amount, so the creditor still receives the full table figure.

It applies per deduction rather than per month. Weekly pay therefore attracts it more often than monthly pay does.

Costs that attach to the debt rather than to your wages

Sheriff officer fees are set by an Act of Sederunt and added to what you owe, and for council tax a 10% statutory surcharge went onto the balance when the summary warrant was granted.

Neither of those changes the weekly or monthly deduction. They change how long it takes to clear the balance.

Other deductions do not come off first either

Another arrestment, a direct earnings attachment or a trust deed payment instruction is not one of the four items section 73(1) names. None of them reduces the net earnings figure the Schedule 2 table is applied to.

So a second deduction on the same payslip does not shrink the arrestment figure. Each one is worked out under its own rules, on its own reading of your pay.

How the arithmetic is rounded

Calculations are worked to two decimal places of a penny and rounded to the nearest whole penny, with an exact half penny rounded down. A few pence between your figure and payroll’s is normally rounding.

Because the tables are banded. A gross figure pushes you into a higher band, which raises both the fixed element and the percentage charged on the excess, so the answer comes out too high twice over.

What a change in the net figure is worth

Every threshold in the tables is written in net earnings for the pay period. Move the input and the output moves with it.

Those figures come straight from the monthly table, which how a wage arrestment is calculated on monthly pay works through band by band, with the weekly version alongside it.

What the wrong input would cost you

Take a month where net earnings are £1,800.00, giving £172.50 under the monthly table. Run the same month off a gross figure of £2,400.00 and the table gives £292.50 instead.

That is £120.00 a month of difference from reading one number instead of another. Why an arrestment can take more than you expected runs through the other reasons a figure can look wrong.

Two people on the same salary can see different deductions

A different tax code or a different pension contribution rate produces a different net earnings figure from the same gross pay. The net figure is the one the table reads.

That is also why the deduction is not fixed for the life of the arrestment. Whether overtime increases the deduction follows the same point through a busy month.

Checking your own figure

Take the net earnings figure for the period, find the band it falls in, and apply the fixed amount plus the percentage of the excess. The bands themselves are set out in how much they can take from your wages and the protected earnings limits.

If you are not certain the line on your payslip is an earnings arrestment at all, how to tell whether you have one sets out what to ask.

Yes, because pension scheme contributions are one of the four deductions that come off before net earnings are worked out. A higher contribution leaves a lower net figure for the table to read.

What section 73(1)(c) covers

The paragraph reaches amounts deductible under an enactment, or at your written request, for a superannuation scheme. That covers the arrangements that pay a pension on retirement or a lump sum on death.

It is the definition doing this rather than any concession. The Act simply does not treat pension contributions as money available to a creditor.

This is not a reason to change your contributions

Cutting your take-home pay to shrink a deduction can leave you worse off month to month. Take advice before changing anything about your pension.

If your contribution rate moves for another reason, through auto-enrolment or a pay review, expect the arrested amount to move with it.

When a period falls below the threshold

If net earnings for a period come in at £750.00 a month or less, the deduction for that period is nil. What happens if you earn below the threshold explains why that does not end the arrestment.

An earnings arrestment ranks as a priority order, alongside a conjoined arrestment order, a current maintenance arrestment and a child maintenance deduction from earnings order. A DWP direct earnings attachment comes after those.

The ordering

The ordering is published by the Department for Work and Pensions in its employer’s guide to direct earnings attachments, which also carries the 60% rule that belongs to that deduction.

The 60% figure is not an earnings arrestment rule

A direct earnings attachment leaves you with at least 60% of your net wage, measured against your total deductions. An earnings arrestment has no percentage floor and no percentage cap, which whether it can take more than half your wages works through.

Where other orders already take 40% or more of your net earnings, no direct earnings attachment is deducted for that period. Your employer still returns a nil schedule to the DWP.

Ask payroll in writing which figure they applied the table to and which table they used. If that does not settle it, section 50(3) of the 1987 Act allows an application to determine a dispute about how the arrestment is operating.

Put the question in writing

Ask for the net earnings figure used for the period, the table applied, and the date the arrestment schedule was received. Those are the three inputs the deduction is worked out from, so they are the three things to ask for.

Keep your own calculation alongside it. A gap of a few pence is rounding, and a gap of tens of pounds points to the wrong table or the wrong input.

What section 50 will and will not do

Section 50(1) covers a declarator that the arrestment is invalid or has ceased to have effect, using Form 32 under rule 40(1), and section 50(3) covers a dispute about its operation, using Form 33 under rule 41(1). The Scottish courts publish the rules, and it is worth taking advice before lodging either.

What section 50 will not do is reduce the deduction because you cannot afford it. There is no hardship ground against an earnings arrestment.

Where the figure is right but unmanageable

An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops an existing earnings arrestment, and a statutory moratorium gives six months of protection while you get advice in place.

Both run through the Accountant in Bankruptcy, and general guidance on diligence sits on mygov.scot.