Another study released by accountancy firm PwC, indicates that sick days are costing UK employers approximately £29bn a year, with British workers taking up to four times as many days off as their global counterparts. The PwC research of 2,500 UK businesses found that UK workers have an average of 9.1 days off from their jobs each year due to sickness. This is double the amount of sickness absence as US staff (4.9 days) and quadruple that of workers in the Asia Pacific region (2.2 days). The average for Western Europe was 7.3 days. PwC’s research showed that in UK companies, illness and its associated costs accounted for around 90 per cent (£28.8 billion) of the total absence bill (£31.1 billion). Other unexpected absences such as compassionate leave and industrial action made up the remainder. These figures compared to a sickness absence cost of £27.8 billion in 2011, out of an overall absenteeism bill of £32.1 billion.
Abolition of the PTS and requirement to keep SSP records from April 2014
20 December 2013
We have reported several times over the last few months that the Percentage Threshold Scheme (PTS) will be abolished from April 2014, as will the requirement to keep Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) records.
As the SSP fields will be removed from the FPS from 6 April 2014, and SSP is very often recovered in arrears, this has prompted many members to ask how this will be done.
Currently employers who are claiming under PTS have to advise HMRC of the amount of SSP they have paid to their employees. If SSP is paid but there is no entitlement under PTS then no data is reported to HMRC. As PTS is being abolished there will be no instances when HMRC will require SSP data to be reported. This means the data items that are currently shown on the FPS and EPS for SSP and SSP recovery are being removed from 6th April 2014. This change was necessary to ensure that employers did not claim PTS when there is no longer an entitlement. However employers will still be able to make late claims under the PTS for periods of sickness up to 5th April 2014 for a period of two years. They will be able to do this via the clerical process for non-RTI years or EYU and EPS for RTI years. Considering the situation where employers are not actually paying SSP until after 6th April, for a period of sickness up to 5th April, there will no longer be the data items to report SSP and SSP recovery. A number of possible workarounds have been considered to allow employers to notify HMRC of the payment and recovery but for various reasons have been disregarded. These are mainly to do with HMRC’s banking systems and could cause incorrect under or over payments being recorded against an employer’s liability. One suggestion is that for the paydays when SSP is being paid after 5th April 2014, due to the employee’s pay pattern or late notification of sickness, employers record any SSP recovery under SMP recovery. This is only one suggestion, however HMRC would like to know if this option is likely to cause any problems with payroll/software. Employers would not need to send HMRC details of any of the actual SSP paid just the amount of PTS claimed in the SMP recovery year to date on the EPS.
If you have a view on this please can you email policy titling your email ‘ PTS recovery ’.
We have also queried the removal of the need to keep SSP records, as we all know employers will still need to keep records for SSP. HMRC say that it is the intention of DWP to remove regulation 13 - records to be maintained by employers from the SSP (General)
CIPP Policy News Journal
16/04/2014, Page 498 of 519
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