Sick Pay and Sick Notes

[ojread2]

Just need a bit of help with regard to how much SSP one of my colleagues should have received for being off sick this month
Sick cert start date was the 1st Jan and she is back to work on 2nd Feb - her normal working days are Mon, Tues and weds
Does anyone know what the first day/date her sick pay should have been paid from?

TIA

[Ethel]

It depends on the terms and conditions of her employment.

Some employers will count it from day 1, in this case a Thursday. No pay for first three days would mean SSP would be payable from Tuesday 6th (weekends discarded unless usually worked)

Others start the three day count from the first working day, in which case SSP would be payable from the 8th

[ojread2]

Cheers Ethel, thats actually answered exactly what she needed to know

Only other question really is, I thought weekends were included when working out sick pay?

[buildersmate]

You can give Ethel as many stars as you wish - she deserves them all. However on this rare occasion, I think the answer is wrong.
Firstly we are talking SSP here - not entitlement to (company) sick pay. SSP does not depend on your T&Cs - everyone gets entitlement provided they earn over the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) for NI purposes. The rate is around �75 odd pounds per standard week, but paid on a daily basis.
You must be sick for at least 4 days in a row - these can include weekends. The first three normal working days are not paid. So the first possible day for payment of SSP is 12th January - the 4th working day after 3 Qualifying Days.
However her T&Cs of employment may entitle her to more money than that - many employers pay normal salary (at least for a length of weeks). In that event she doesn't get paid SSP in addition to normal wages - her employer claims the amounts to offset the full salary paid.

[TCL-MUMPING]

Yup buildersmate is correct, it's payable from the fourth Qualifying Day and not the fourth day of the illness. Although SSP is paid on a daily basis, in yir pal's case she'll have been off work for three of her working weeks so she will get three weeks' SSP and not nine days as some may have thought.

[Ethel]

It can depend on the terms of the conditions of the employer- this is how one deals with SSP for job sharers:

Qualifying Days for Statutory Sick Pay
Qualifying days for Statutory Sick Pay purposes will be all five days of the week
Monday � Friday inclusive, or where weekend working is normal all seven days of the week. This will apply regardless of the actual pattern of hours worked. The intention is to preserve flexibility by avoiding the inequalities created by the Statutory Sick Pay
regulations for job sharers on certain patterns of work

[ojread2]

Cheers all
We don't get company sick pay - heaven forbid they actually gave us something for nothing! - but I think she has been paid incorrectly myself
She will have been off for the whole of this month on a sick note and should, from what I could gather from the IR site, get what TCL says (plus a couple of days?)
The lower limit for SSP is no �90pw, which we do get paid, just (we all work PT). She will according to our employer only get 2 weeks SSP, plus what she gets inc in her wages (holiday pay etc)
In fact, our employer doesn't even know who to pay SSP and told one member of staff she wasn't entitled to get anything at all when she was off for 3 months a couple of years ago. She didn't even give her form SSP1 to fill in - I have to also point out that I am certain it is because I have asked pertinent questions in front of my employer and other staff that we are getting any sick pay now, as the other members of staff are too scared to 'kick up a fuss'.

This is just one thing in a long line of many
Thanks all for your help - I have sent my colleague all information and the link on the IR site for SSP and how it is worked out. I also found a tool for employers to work out SSP so she can use that to make sure she gets her full entitlement

[TCL-MUMPING]

Qualifying Days(QDs) are usually the normal working days, they can be non working days but in all the years I worked awarding Incapacity Benefit and making sure SSP had been correctly paid, I never came across any employer who used non-working days as QDs. There are HMRC handbooks for employers to use so they should be able to work out if someone is entitled to SSP or no. In ma day there were helplines for employers to use, one for those in business for three years and one for those trading for more. I'll have a wee look to see If I can find them in a bit.

As for the amount of SSP I still make it three weeks because the first working yir pal was sick was 5th Jan and the fourth working day was not til the 12th and she'll be sick for three working weeks.

[TCL-MUMPING]

The numbers are less than three years = 0845 60 70 143 more than three years = 08457 143 143