does anyone have experience of receiving ssp? A colleague has been off sick for a long time and has now had her pay reduced to half pay ( as per terms and conditions). This will be for 6 months. I assumed that this would include ssp but our employer is adding on ssp to the half pay so the person involved is actually receiving three quarters pay. Is this how most employees treat ssp? thank you
Most would pay ssp or company sick pay, not both. Ssp is the legal minimum a company must pay. What actually gets paid is down to what's in the contract of employment.
I think that's quite unusual. Employers often state as part of Terms and Conditions of employment an employee's benefit (propertion-wise) to payments when sick, but then claim the (relatively small) element of SSP back off the Government, so its invisible to the employee.
SSP can be paid for a maximum of 28 weeks. Some companies choose to pay more than the rate of SSP but that is up to them. Any pay yir colleague has been receiving is in effect SSP topped up to full pay or half pay.
Once the 28 weeks SSP has been completed, Incapacity Benefit can be claimed even if Company Sick Pay continues.
If what you say is correct, they have misunderstood the SSP rules as the 28 weeks starts three days after the incapacity began and not when full pay ends.