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Statutory Payments
Former ministers say SSP reform is needed Published: 9 May 2023 Emailed: 10 May 2023
Former home secretary, Priti Patel and former lord chancellor and justice secretary, Sir Robert Buckland have called for changes to the current statutory sick pay (SSP) system. They said it should be altered so it helps ill people “get back on their feet and back to work”. It's estimated that two million people in the UK aren’t eligible for any sick pay at all. In addition, another ten million individuals are eligible for SSP only, but due to the current rules, don’t receive any sick pay for the first three days of absence. A consultation which looked at potential reforms to SSP, ‘Health is everyone’s business: proposals to reduce ill health - related job loss’ considered making it so that employees who didn’t earn at or above the lower earnings limit would also be eligible for the payments. 75% of respondents to the consultation supported this move but the government confirmed no changes would be made in this sp ace, stating “now is not the right time to introduce changes to the sick pay system”.
Patel and Buckland said:
“The government has an opportunity to grasp the nettle and take forward these popular reforms. A modest investment in supporting those affected by ill heath will save businesses money by reducing the impact and risk of longer-term absence, help efforts to support recruitment, retention and employee morale, and provide a boost to our economy. “The government can be both tough on those who need a nudge to get back into work and compassionate to those who through no fault of their own need time to recover. These simple tweaks to the system would ensure all workers get sick pay from their employer from day one of their illness. Second, we could ensure that every worker can access at least some sick pay from their employer.”
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Breaking: Statutory parental leave changes coming Published: 29 June 2023 Emailed: 5 July 2023
The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has released a response to a consultation, originally released by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in 2019. The consultation explored reforming parental leave and pay, looking at achieving greater equality in parenting at work. The results have been slightly (and a bit more) delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, when the departments involved were focusing resource on job retention and support schemes. However, we now have the official government response so let’s dive into it.
The main announcement is that new legislation will be brought forward to make changes to paternity leave. These changes will be:
• give employed fathers and partners more choice and flexibility around how and when they take their paternity leave. They will be able to take the current entitlement of up to two weeks of leave in two separate blocks of one week of leave if they wish • give employed fathers and partners the ability to take their leave at any time in the first year, rather than just in the first eight weeks after birth or placement for adoption • change the notice requirements for Paternity Leave to make these more proportionate to the amount of time the father or partner plans to take off work. This will give parents more flexibility in planning to take the leave that they need. They also point to the online tool launched in 2021 that assists parents in planning and using Shared Parental Leave. The feedback comes from questions outlined in the Good Work Plan, which was also published in 2019, and explores the objectives of parental leave and how government decision impact those aims.
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