The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals ……………………………………………………………Policy News Journal
Flexible SSP There are two current proposals in this space:
1. An employee works 25 hours a week for £7.20 per hour or £180 per week. If they went on a period of sickness absence they will need to return to work for at least 13 hours in order to compensate for the loss of £88.45 in Statutory Sick Pay(13 hours x £7.20 = £93.60).
If the employer and employee came to an agreement for a partial return to work of 10 hours per week, the employer would ‘top up’ the salary to the Statutory Sick Pay level.
For example, the employer would pay £72 in wages (£7.20 x 10 hours) plus £16.45 to ‘top up’ to the Statutory Sick Pay rate of £88.45.
2. Employee would get £72 wages (40% of total, matching the time she works) plus around £53 of her SSP (60%), and it would be worth her while to return to work. 3. From her employer’s point of view, they could either pay £88.45 for the employee to do nothing, or pay a total of around £125 to have her at 40% capacity, and the knowledge that she will return to work completely, so no replacement costs.
This would mean that the maximum amount of Statutory Sick Pay and/ or pay spent by employers and received by employees during a period of transition back from sickness remains constant.
The paper Improving Lives - the work, health and disability is available to read in full, via GOV.UK.
DWP really need your help in understanding the detailed implications of flexible SSP and you have the right expertise to provide this detail – thank you. The survey can be accessed directly and will close on 10 March 2017. Any additional comments would be welcomed to policy@cipp.org.uk .
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'Fit pay' policy needed to keep staff healthy and in work 28 February 2017
A report by the IPPR says that SSP, Fit Notes and the Fit for Work service are not enough to help people get back to work.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) has said that government must introduce a major shift in incentives with greater obligations on employers to support employees to stay in work, and greater financial liabilities if they fail to do so. The IPPR has also said that the government must ensure that the sickness policy framework, notably SSP, properly reflects the nature of today’s major health conditions.
The IPPR has recommended that the government introduce four major reforms:
1. Establish new employer duties to engage with employers on statutory sick pay and extend SSP from 28 to 52 weeks. 2. Introduce Fit Pay (flexible sick pay) to better reflect the nature of modern health conditions and vbetter support employees back into work. 3. Pilot an expanded Fit for Work occupational health service to support SMEs in particular to support employees to stay in work 4. Ensure employers meet responsibilities for paying SSP.
Read the full report from the IPPR here .
CIPP comment
We recently published a news item calling for your help in understanding the detailed implications of flexible SSP.
In support of the Green Paper Improving Lives - the work, health and disability , the DWP has produced a short survey to gather views for a flexible Statutory Sick Pay system so that it better encourages supportive conversations and
The Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals
Policy News Journal
cipp.org.uk
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