Normal salary on top of SSP?

comeandgo

Yes it's perfectly possible, my old employer did it for some staff even though the official policy was you would only get SSP.

elsien

Are you the employer or the employee?
Doesn't make any odds to the answers, I'm just curious.

Marcon

No_Name wrote: »

If the company does not normally pay sick pay, can it not (at it's discretion) pay normal salary on top of SSP to take an employee's gross pay back to where it should be?


Example - normal pay of £1,500 pre-tax; entitled to £350 SSP, pay difference of £1,150 normal salary at company's discretion.


Or is it one or the other?

If your example is 'one', what's the 'other' to which you refer?

Companies can almost always exercise their discretion provided they do not do so in a way which could be construed as unlawfully discriminatory against other employees.

TBagpuss

Yes, a company could shose to top up SSP so that the employee recieves their normal level of income.

In cases where employees do give sick pay it is often on this basis - than anything you are entitled to as SSP is counted towards the total amount, so that you receive the same amount as you normally would (and in the case of long term sickness, your SSP entlement runs from 3 days after you first go off sick, not from when you stop getting paid sick leave)

But the employer would not be under any obligation to pay extra if they don't have a contractual aragement for paid sick leave.

spadoosh

Id say the most typical arrangement for doing this is allowing holidays to be used during the sick period. So holiday pay and SSP but obviously restricting the holiday entitlement.

LilElvis

No_Name wrote: »

Not good for the employer hence discretionary.


So there's no stopping the employer from doing my example above, paying additional salary on top of SSP?

What may well stop them is the precedent it sets/ upset it may cause amongst other employees who don't receive it and feel they are equally as deserving.

No_Name

Thanks for everyones input.

BrassicWoman

also you need to look at if it's illegally discriminatory to pay it for one and not another.

are only the white men getting the extra, for example.

Lisbon

BrassicWoman wrote: »

also you need to look at if it's illegally discriminatory to pay it for one and not another.

are only the white men getting the extra, for example.

That point's already been made in post 14 above.

Andy_L

Employers can no longer reclaim the cost of paying SSP so (other than possibly avoiding employers NI on the SSP bit?), there's no advantage to them in paying SSP plus a top-up rather than just paying full salary to someone off sick.