Statutory Sick Pay for Employees

About this Guide

This guide tells you the background to the Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) scheme, and tells you whether you are entitled to SSP. It also gives you the weekly rate of SSP.

Employers must pay SSP to their employees at the weekly SSP rate, providing they satisfy the following qualifying conditions:

• for SSP purposes, an employee is a person whose earnings attract a liability for employer's Class 1 National Insurance (NI) contributions
  
• you do not have to have paid any Class 1 NI contributions to get SSP. If you start work on the first day of employment for a new employer and become sick part way through the day, then you can be entitled to SSP. This is because as an employee you have done some work for your employer under your contract of employment
  
• a spell of four or more consecutive calendar days in a row is known as a Period of Incapacity for Work (PIW). If there are less than four days in a row there is no PIW and SSP is not payable
  
• any two or more PIWs separated from each other by eight weeks or less are linked together and are treated as one PIW
  
• Qualifying Days (QDs) are the only days for which SSP can be paid. They are also the only days which count as Waiting Days (WDs). QDs are usually the days of the week on which an employee is required by their contract to be available for work. You and your employer can agree other days if you want to. Bank Holidays do not interrupt the normal pattern of QDs, and there has to be at least one QD in each week, Sunday to Saturday
  
• SSP is not payable for the first three QDs in a PIW. These are called WDs. They are not necessarily the same as the first three days of sickness
  
• SSP is paid at a daily rate. The current weekly rate for sickness between 6 April 2005 and 5 April 2006 is £68.20
• SSP is paid for a maximum of 28 weeks in each spell of sickness
  
• SSP should be paid to the majority of employees who
  • are aged 16 or over and under 65
  • are off sick for four or more calendar days in a row
  • have average weekly earnings of not less than the Lower Earnings Limit (LEL) for NI contribution purposes, currently £82.00 for April 2005-06 tax year.