Sick Pay Guide for Employers

What is new from 6 April 2008

Statutory Sick Pay weekly rate from 6 April 2008

The weekly rate of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) for days of sickness from 6 April 2008 is £75.40.

Statutory Sick Pay daily rate table

There may be occasions when you only need to pay SSP for part of a week. If so you will need to calculate a daily rate of SSP. The daily rate of SSP is the weekly rate divided by the number of agreed Qualifying Days (QDs) in that week. For SSP purposes the week always begins with a Sunday. The amount payable that week is the daily rate multiplied by the number of QDs the employee is sick in that week, not including Waiting Days (WDs).

How to use this table to work out how much to pay

An employee is sick for one week, from Sunday to Friday. The QDs in that week are Monday to Friday.

The first three QDs, Monday to Wednesday, are WDs and SSP is not payable for those days so you need only pay SSP for Thursday and Friday.

There are five QDs in the week, so find ‘5’ in the ‘Number of QDs in week’ column.

You have to pay SSP for two days so move across to the column headed by ‘2’. This gives an amount of £30.16 so that is how much SSP you must pay.

Daily rates table for days of sickness from 6 April 2008 to 5 April 2009

The Welfare Reform Act 2007

The Welfare Reform Act 2007 will introduce a new Social Security benefit which will replace Incapacity Benefit (IB) for new customers from Autumn 2008.

We are reviewing the current information requirements when SSP comes to an end and subject to Parliamentary approval will be introducing changes during this tax year. If changes are introduced during this tax year details will be supplied in an Employer Bulletin or HMRC and DWP web sites.

We will also be reviewing the requirement to issue form SSP1L and changes could be introduced during this tax year, subject to Parliamentary approval.

Any details of these changes will be published in an Employer Bulletin or HMRC and DWP website.

Merger of Employer Helpbooks

The Employer Helpbooks E14 What to do if your employee is sick and the E14 (Supplement) Special cases, have now been merged for use from 6 April 2008. The merger of the Helpbooks will provide easier access to information on SSP for employers.