Sick pay issue at work (teacher)

BigBoss

Here are the facts:

- I was signed off for work for a month on the 19th November 2013 and given a sicknote by my doctor.

- I let my headteacher know about this through a text message, but did not send the sicknote right away for whatever reason. I still received my November pay as normal.

- My headteacher now says that my leave is unauthorised and I will not be paid for December and invoiced for money I owe to the local authority for November's pay.

- I sent the sicknote via fax this morning.

Questions:

Am I legally entitled to receive my December pay, even though I submitted the sicknote late? In other words, does the law still apply to me regarding sick pay, although I submitted the note late?

jobbingmusician

I would think it depends on what your contract says about sick leave. If (for example) you are contractually obliged to send in your sicknote within a given timescale, then you have broken your contract of employment and I would guess they are entitled not to pay you.

I think the argument that your leave is 'unauthorised' is spurious, however, if you let your HT know that you had been given a sick note and can now produce it!

None of the above is written from the standpoint of an expert, however, and I look forward to replies from those more experienced than I......

irishjohn

Your November salary would have been processed before you notified your headmaster of your sickness. With no sick note being provided until today your December salary will have not have been processed as you failed to meet your obligations to your employer. You will need to send the original document to your headmaster, as a fax can be a copy of a document which has been edited. Once you fulfil your obligations to your employer, then they will reinstate their contractual obligations and pay you up to 6 months full pay followed by 6 months half pay.

If today is the last day of school before Christmas then you need to get the original sicknote to the head to enable it to be processed. I suspect you realised your error when your December salary did not go into your bank today? You will probably receive your December salary as arrears payable with your January salary / sickness benefit - in other words - a month late, just like the sicknote.

BigBoss

My HT sent me an email in which he requested a "copy" of the sicknote be sent to the school "to void the invoice". He made no mention of re-processing my December pay.

I guess we'll have to see where this goes. Thanks for the responses guys.

Takeaway_Addict

I would agree with JM with the exception of the SSP part of sick pay, if the note backdates to when you started I would expect it to be paid. If there is contractual on top and you have broken the contract then they could argue the toss

either way, as you messed them around I'm not surprised they are messing you around.

irishjohn

although he said copy - he meant the document given to you by the doctor - that is the only one which can be validated as genuine.

When I was a teacher and was off ill with a sicknote - my pay was processed as usual but because processing runs happen mid month to enable payment to be made at the end of the month it was often the case that there were some out of the ordinary items - Teachers receive full pay for 6 months - but as they receive SSP this is shown as an addition and a deduction - otherwise someone off sick would receive more. it is difficult to co-ordinate the additions and deductions so in your first month off sick you may receive full salary plus 1 week SSP - then in month two any additional SSP paid in the previous month will show as further deductions.

So the actual payments can be a bit up and down but they even out over the period of sickness.

The problem here is - you did not send the sick note in promptly and you were therefore removed from payroll - in case you had done a disappearing act.
Having received the sicknote I am sure your pay will be restored and arrears paid, in the next payment run.