Statutory Sickness Guide
If your employee is off work due to sickness
Please enter FIRST day of sickness and if known Return to work date
Please complete our online sick form
Statutory sick pay starts on the 4th consecutive day
The first 3 days includes any non -working days but of course any non-working days are not paid
This leaves what you are going to in the first three days of sick leave, some employers pay full salary for the 3 days, some a percentage of the salary ( for example 50% ) some pay nothing.
Also you have the choice if you want to pay something or not for a certain amount of the 3 days
( for example 0, 1, 2 or all 3 days )
The decision is entirely yours and you are not bound by any statutory regulations
The first question asks are you paying salary for the first 3 days ( if you are please answer YES )
The next question says if you answered NO to paying salary for first 3 days how many are you paying for ( NIL, 1, or 2 )
Next question asks once SSP starts on the 4th working day will employee only receive SSP
( if so please answer YES )
If you answered NO
Are you topping SSP up to normal salary amount
If you answered NO
How much are you topping up by ( please enter salary amount ) on top of this will be the SSP
Enter days of the week the employee normally works for you
Submit the form online we re-process payroll if changes required & record SSP on your PAYE records
Please complete the SSP form again when your employee actually Returns To Work and you have an actual date
Or you can e-mail us the Return date
Where a HMRC small employer PAYE scheme is being operated Statutory Sickness Payment is received by the employee on the 4th consecutive working day of sick leave as per government legislation.
During the first three days of sick leave the employer decides if they wish to pay the employee their salary for none, one, two or three days prior to SSP starting.
Likewise once SSP starts the employer decides if they wish to “top up” the salary of the employee to any level they wish over and above the current SSP rate.
Normally the employer and employee also agree in the employment contract a total amount of sick days per year that the employer will pay the sick employee their salary prior to SSP starting on the 4th consecutive working day and a generous average is 6 days in total during one year of employment.
The employer is under no obligation to make salary payments or salary “top ups” during sick leave and may opt to include in the employment contract that. “ The employer will not pay the employee from the first day of sickness and the employee will receive SSP only”.
Crown Payroll Ltdhandle all of this on your behalf. All you need to do as a subscriber to our service is complete a SSP form on the FIRST day of sickness. We then calculate SSP on your behalf and include SSP payments in the next payslip. You then pay the net as shown on the payslip in the normal way. Employers could recover SSP paid where the total exceeded 13% of Class 1 National Insurance Contributions, known as the Percentage Threshold Scheme (PTS). From 6 April 2014 PTS has been abolished, this means SSP paid by the employer to the employee, which is a statutory requirement will be an unrecoverable cost for all employers. As the employer you may wish to take this into account when awarding paid salary days for the first three days when an employee is sick and the total to be paid per year.
