Incapacity Benefit - Confused!

Icemoose

Okay I am hoping you can help me with this as my employers are useless and I am so confused.

Last year I was off sick, I use my SSP entitlement at work and claim IB for the finally 4 weeks I was off. I then went back to work and worked for about 14 weeks before I got ill again and went back on the sick at work – this was in March 2007.

I assumed I would not have built up any SSP entitlement at work and would claim IB again and at first my employers said the same. So I submitted my claim and waited for my employers to send an SSP 1 form to me.

Then they told me that I didn’t need to claim IB as I would get SSP from them again, so I cancelled my claim for IB at the DSS.

I then tried for over two weeks to get my employers to send me a letter stating how much SSP I would get and from what date… it’s took two weeks and nothing changed so I chased it yesterday with my team manager and asked her if she would sort something out.

Today I get a call from HR at work who tell me they are sending me SSP1 and I need to claim Incapacity Benefit…


This is where I get confused…

They tell me at work I am entitled to full pay and so I have not been overpaid. She tells me that I will get 18 days of SSP in March and a full month of SSP in April if I am still off all month (I will be at the moment)… but and this is what I don’t get! I need to claim Incapacity Benefit and any money I am paid from the DSS I have to pay back to my employers… so if I get £70.05 a week I owe my work that amount of money!

I never heard of this before and I work in Housing Benefit so I am rather surprised to never heard of this process before… is it right? Or am I just being fobbed off from my employers HR department because they don’t know what they are doing!

HELP!

Morglin

Try these links:


http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Pay/DG_10027238

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Bfsl1/BenefitsAndFinancialSupport/DG_10018786

Lin

Icemoose

Thanks so much for that! I understand it better now!