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- Publisher
- Emerald Publishing
- Copyright
- Copyright © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
- ISSN
- 0019-7858
- DOI
- 10.1108/eb003935
- Publisher site
- See Article on Publisher Site
Abstract
some fina l advice on STATUTORY SICK PAY by BILL WALS H our Health & Safety correspondent Now that I have run many seminars on SSP I have selected the following topics as the main ones which company trainers might have missed or had difficulty with. employee information Few firms have thought of the need to tell employees about which count as 'waiting days' and for which SSP is payable. SSP and what it will mean to them not only as 'sickness Except where working days are difficult to predict in benefit' but what variations it will make to occupational sick advance this definition is asking for trouble. pay. Middle managers and supervisors, at the very least, First what are 'normal' work days will plague one (at bank and other holiday times, when employees are due for a day should be informed of the broad resuls of SSP and what will off for any of a dozen reasons etc). Then again if weeks can happen when an employee has exhausted SSP. vary between, say, a four day one (ie bank holiday in the Some firms pay occupational sick pay less the sickness week) and a six day one (overtime worked on a Saturday) or benefit to which the employee is entitled. Is that to continue even more widely, then short periods of SSP can be for all ie occupational sick pay less SSP plus SSP!!, or will you pay occupational sick pay and retain SSP? It may not make any kinds of fraction of a week eg (from above) one-fourth and financial difference but it does vary the administration. And one-sixth, for odd days of SSP. what of the many situations in which occupational sick pay That will cause headaches to payroll and will raise queries is paid less sickness benefit even though the employee is for employees who might be paid different amounts of SSP receiving industrial injuries benefit (ie at a higher rate). for the same apparent absence. Additionally it makes it very From 6th April next there is no industrial injuries benefit very difficult to aggregate several short SSP periods. Yet and so if one wants to be more generous to the employee that aggregation is necessary first to ensure the employee is incapacitated because of injury at work a new way of told if he is running out of SSP and second to ensure one achieving this must be found. does not pay more than eight weeks per tax year. It is far better to define 'qualifying' as the dominant work Those keen on occupational safety should note that with SSP the DHSS form BI 76 (enquiring into the circumstances days (say Monday to Friday in office and works, Tuesday to of an accident) will disappear. That in turn could lead to Saturday in shops etc) for every week of the year. This not the under- (or even non-) reporting of minor accidents with only establishes certainty for everyone but can often be beneficial to an employee who might not otherwise be able adverse effects on information, accident prevention training to count holiday days he is sick as either waiting or payable and knowledge. Of course all accidents should still be recorded — but will they, now that one motivator is going to days for SSP. disappear? In most cases it operates to the employee's benefit without it costing the employer anything at all since SSP paid is recovery of SSP recovered. Where work is irregular (Continental shift Smaller firms in particular have not cottoned on to the patterns and the like) the qualifying days might well be doctrine of set-off. This says in effect that if one is paying identified from schedules or lists — there is nothing in the an employee for specific days of absence as much or more SSP scheme which prevents one from agreeing something than he would receive as SSP then one may recover SSP but different as qualifying days each time the MD sneezes. not pay it over to the employee. And one may be paying an employee for many many reasons — all kinds of holiday control of absence pay, or because the day is one normally off in lieu of having Alas that so many vague intentions are expressed in relation worked some unsocial hours, or to compensate for credits to this subject. built up. Or again because one is paying some form of With self-certification of the first week of absence and SSP occupational sick pay. The latter need not be formal (in the field is wide open to the habitual 'skiver' and the smaller companies it is often at the whim of the MD). No employer who lets the situation go by default invites a matter, set-off can be exercised. And it should often be so, decline in morale, (those who do not skive carry those who for in some cases, (like the MD himself if his emoluments do), and worse, it encourages imitation. are subject to Schedule 'E'), in the past the employee who A rigidly-applied drill to bring suspicious absenteeism to the continues to get his pay may not have bothered to seek manager who can start the ball rolling to find a cure is a sickness benefit (especally for a short absence). Now, not to must — possibly something in the nature of a report at recover SSP is tantamount to giving the Government more quarterly intervals or a report whenever any employee has income than it asks for! — or chucking good money down registered three one-week only (ie self certified absences) in a the drain! tax year. If a fourth should occur then DHSS assistance in Recovery helps to repay the additional national insurance determining whether the absences are justified is available. contribution's burden that one will have to accept in It should be used. matching employee payments of NI contributions on SSP. It the most frequent question will also recover some of the administrative costs for which Finally the most frequently-asked question is this: if I take no allowance is made. on an employee from another firm how do I know what SSP qualifying days absence he has had? Unthinkingly a lot of employers have adopted the formula The answer is that you are not concerned: you have a in the regulations and nominated (in effect) all 'normal' responsibility to pay him for eight weeks in the tax year work days as qualifying days — these being the only days irrespective of what the previous employer has paid him. INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING MARCH 1983
Journal
Industrial and Commercial Training – Emerald Publishing
Published: Mar 1, 1983