• The purpose of the order, for example, CTAEO
• Who issued the order
• The type of debt, for example, council tax
• Who the order is payable to, for example, the local authority
• The total attachment amount, if applicable
• The protected earnings amount, if applicable
• The normal deduction rate, if applicable
• Case number
• If you should use tables to calculate the deduction amount or if it's a fixed amount

  • If you need to deduct using the tables, the issuing court or creditor should include a set with the order

• The name of the person the order refers to

If you receive an AEO and you're unsure what to set this up as, for further information contact the issuing court or creditor.

Protected earnings

To ensure that an employee has sufficient income after you deduct the attachment, the court may set a protected earnings amount, which appears on the order. If you enter a protected earnings amount when setting up an attachment, it means that the employee's net pay can't fall below the amount you enter. If you can't deduct the full amount due to the protected earnings, you may carry the amount forward into the next period depending on the type of attachment.

Administration fee

For each pay period where a calculation results in a deduction, you may take up to £1.00 from your employee's earnings towards your administrative costs. You can take this charge even if it reduces the employee's income below the 60% protected earnings amount.

Where you decide to apply an administration charge of £1.00, this deduction may bring the employees pay below the National Minimum Wage. You should check https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage/employers-and-the-minimumwage,or contact the ACAS helpline for advice. It’s a criminal offence for employers to not pay someone the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage.

Priority order

Each attachment has a priority assigned to it. If the employee has just one attachment it's automatically assigned priority order one. If the employee has more than one attachment you must deduct them in the correct order according to the HMCS. The table below shows the priority of the attachments in the order you should deduct them.

Attachment orders relating to maintenance, fines, child support, Community Charge and Council Tax always take priority over non-priority attachments for civil debts, student loans or CMAs. The rules relating to the priority order of attachments are complex and can differ depending on whether the attachment was issued in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

The table below shows the settings for the different types of AEOs you may receive:

Order type	To set up in the software	Amount or percentage	Protected earnings	Carried forward
Attachment of earnings order (fines or maintenance)	1971 Priority	Amount	Yes	Yes
	Fines Enforcement (if instructed to deduct using tables)	Percentage	Yes	Yes
Child support	CSA	Amount	Yes	Yes
	Child Support (2012)		Yes - fixed at 60%
Deduction from earnings order	Deduction of Earnings Order	Amount	Yes	Yes
	NOTE: Takes priority over existing AEOs.
Attachment of earnings order (civil debt or maintenance)	1971 Non-Priority	Amount	Yes	No
Community charge attachment of earnings order (pre 1992)	Pre 92 Community Charge	Amount or percentage	No	No
	NOTE: Contact local authority for further advice.
Community charge attachment of earnings order (post 1992)	Post 92 Community Charge	Percentage	No	No
	NOTE: Contact local authority for further advice.
Council tax attachment of earnings order	Council Tax	Percentage	No	No
	NOTE: An employee can only have two CTAEOs from the same billing authority active at any one time. You should return any further CTAEOs.
Earnings arrest	Earnings Arrest	Amount or percentage	No	No
	NOTE: Can be operated with a current maintenance arrestment, but can only have one earnings arrest active at any time. You should return any further orders. The employee is issued with a conjoined arrestment order instead.
Current maintenance arrestment	Current Maintenance Arrest	Amount	No	No
	NOTE: You can operate this order with an earnings arrestment, but the employee can only have one current maintenance arrestment active at any time. You should return any further orders. The employee is issued with a conjoined arrestment order instead.
Conjoined arrestment order	Conjoined Arrestment Order	Amount	No	No
	NOTE: This is issued if the employee has more than one earnings arrestment or current maintenance arrestment.
Income Support Deduction Notice	Income Support Deduction Notice	Amount	Yes	No
Earnings arrest for bankruptcy and diligence	Earnings Arrest (2006)	Amount or percentage	Yes	Yes
Centralised attachments of earnings payment (CAPS)	1971 Non-Priority	Amount	Yes	No
Direct earnings attachments	Direct Earnings Attachments	Percentage	Yes - fixed at 60%	No

Protected earnings

To ensure that your employee has sufficient income, the court may set a protected earnings amount, which appears on the order. If you enter a protected earnings amount when setting up an attachment, it means that the employee's net pay can't fall below the amount you enter. If you can't deduct the full amount due to the protected earnings, you may be able to carry forward the amount into the next period depending on the type of attachment being used.

Administration fee

To cover administration costs, you're entitled to deduct a fee of £1.00 per pay period whenever you make a deduction for that order. This deducts from the employee's net pay and can reduce the employee's earnings below the protected earnings figure, if applicable.

The table below shows the settings for the different types of AEOs you may receive: