Completely baffled about how SSP is calculated from month to month

martin2345uk

So my mum is currently off sick for cancer treatment, and we've been looking at her payslips to see how much SSP she is getting, but it varies each month! Anyone know why that is...?
The amounts she's got are as follows:

• March: £309.69
• April: £377.00
• May: £107.72 (lower as they had lost her new sickness certificate)
• June: £753.33 (presumably back pay for May)
• July: £479.25

I was under the impression SSP is a fixed amount per week, anyone know why the amount she gets might vary like this?
Thanks!

nicechap

martin2345uk said:

So my mum is currently off sick for cancer treatment, and we've been looking at her payslips to see how much SSP she is getting, but it varies each month! Anyone know why that is...?
The amounts she's got are as follows:

• March: £309.69
• April: £377.00
• May: £107.72 (lower as they had lost her new sickness certificate)
• June: £753.33 (presumably back pay for May)
• July: £479.25

I was under the impression SSP is a fixed amount per week, anyone know why the amount she gets might vary like this?
Thanks!

Without seeing the payslips, some suggested reasons: different months have different number of weeks, pay periods may not match calendar months, tax.

TELLIT01

SSP is a standard rate of £95.85 per week.  However, if your mother is paid monthly it will vary based on the number of working days in the pay month.

Marcon

martin2345uk said:

So my mum is currently off sick for cancer treatment, and we've been looking at her payslips to see how much SSP she is getting, but it varies each month! Anyone know why that is...?
The amounts she's got are as follows:

• March: £309.69
• April: £377.00
• May: £107.72 (lower as they had lost her new sickness certificate)
• June: £753.33 (presumably back pay for May)
• July: £479.25

I was under the impression SSP is a fixed amount per week, anyone know why the amount she gets might vary like this?
Thanks!

£95.85 a week (payable from the fourth day of absence) for up to 28 weeks. I'd check with the employer - that's likely to be the quickest way to get the answer. Could there be come company sick pay in there topping up the SSP for July?

martin2345uk

How long has it been £95.85 a week? Has that gone up recently?
The payslips contain pretty much no additional info! Very bare bones. Annoyingly the staff are not allowed to contact payroll direct, they have to go through an admin woman which makes the process a bit more difficult...

chrisbur

I am assuming that the figures quoted are the gross figures for SSP. 
From these figures it appears that the employer is paying 5 weeks for some months and four weeks for others.  July is exactly five weeks of SSP.
Can you advise the first date when no work was done due to sickness.
What is the normal working pattern eg Monday to Friday working Saturday Sunday not working?
Is each month's payment pay for that month?

TELLIT01

No idea when it changed to £95.85 but that's the figure on gov.uk.

chrisbur

martin2345uk said:

How long has it been £95.85 a week? Has that gone up recently?
The payslips contain pretty much no additional info! Very bare bones. Annoyingly the staff are not allowed to contact payroll direct, they have to go through an admin woman which makes the process a bit more difficult...

New rate started 6 April 2020
As I said in earlier post it looks like employer is paying in blocks of four or five weeks.  So July £479.25 is exactly 5 weeks at £95.85 and April £377 is exactly 4 weeks at £94.25
May and June added together are 1 week at £94.25 and 8 weeks at £95.85
Whether these splits are correct will depend on when the money is being paid for.  
The weekly rate is fixed each year but the daily rate depends on the working pattern and the start of the sicknes is affected by the waiting days which are also affected by the working pattern hence my questions in the earlier post.

martin2345uk

Thanks very much that goes a long way to explaining it!
It's strange as mum is only contracted to do every other weekend and every Monday evening, averages out at 11 hours a week (19 hours one week and 4 hours the next week) so normally she wouldn't even qualify for SSP but I think she was doing a lot of overtime in the qualifying period..!

chrisbur

Only needed to average £118 a week to get SSP so even if on minimum wage not a great deal of overtime needed.   I suspect that your mother would have to check with her employer to find out what her qualifying days are and the pay period covered by each month in order to check the SSP exactly.  Probably best not to bother the amount being paid may not be exactly correct but the part I can check is not far out just paid using 5 weeks for some months and 4 for others.

martin2345uk

Yeah it makes much more sense now, thank you very much!