Sicknote/Sickpay error

ClothbumMum

Just wondering if anyone can advise.

I was off sick for 7 weeks this past 2 months going off mid April.
I submitted my Fitnote to my manager on 17/4 the day after I received it.
In my April wage there was no adjustments for sickness and i received my normal wage. I have been off with severe metal health issues and as a result I did not query this. 

Yesterday I was paid again and received a significant amount less than i was expecting.

I immediately contacted Payroll and HR and was told that my Fit note was not received in time for processing of Aprils wage so no deductions were made when I should have had 12 days deducted. 

They have deducted my entire sickness period 16/4 to 27/5 from Mays wage stating I was over paid in April so they have taken back the overpayment in May.

HR did not receive my Fit note until 30/4 13 days after i sent it to my manager. 

I appreciate I was overpaid however taking all my sickness in this wage has left me with barely any money and in order to buy food for my 2 young children I am going to have to go into debt with my priority bills!

I adhered strictly to the company absence procedure and provided my fit notes as instructed.

The thing i am most annoyed about is Nobody! Neither of my superiors OR anyone from HR made me aware of this error. Until yesterday I knew nothing about it. My manager must have known she had sent it to HR late and yet said nothing. HR must have realised the error and just went ahead and processed the entire 30 plus days sickness from one pay period without a thought for the affect it would have on my standard of living.

Any advice on how to proceed with this is greatly appreciated.

LinLui

Unfortunately whilst they should have informed you that they were going to make the deduction, making deductions for overpayments is allowed, even if SSP is the only income. As a result there is very little that you can do about this legally and any defence would include the fact that you should have known you had been overpaid and either raised it with them or saved the money overpaid. I am not saying that you could have done anything better - I get that sometimes people don't do things, and you had probvlems that no doubt over-shadowed the pay you received. Just that in legal terms it's kind of 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. So it means basically asking the employer to be kind and perhaps agree a repayment over a period of time plus them paying you some of what your sick pay would hae been. 

Brie

Last place I worked any adjustments to wages needed to be submitted by about the 6th of the month to be processed properly for a payday of the 25th.  So that's likely the reason there was the overpayment in April and the horrendous deduction in May. 

Can you as a matter of urgency talk to your manager on Monday to request an advance on June's or even possibly July's pay to help see you through?  

ClothbumMum

Pay day is the 30th and the sick note was received by HR on the 30th. I explained to HR i do not have enough money for my bills and food they basically said theres nothing they can do! 💔

ClothbumMum

My UNION have said I should raise a grievance of my manager as her not submitting the sick note on time has caused the error. Any thoughts? 

born_again

Please don't take this the wrong way.

In effect you are in the same situation as you would have been had they altered the 1st months wage money wise.

You need to ask & see if they will offer a temp loan, but even then you are going to be short while paying it back.

If your manager has a manager, Have a word with them over the situation. Let them kick them for the mess.

LinLui

ClothbumMum said:

Pay day is the 30th and the sick note was received by HR on the 30th. I explained to HR i do not have enough money for my bills and food they basically said theres nothing they can do! 💔

I am afraid that @Brie has a point though - in many workplaces (mine too) even the date you submitted it wouldn't have changed a payroll two weeks later. It is hard yes,  but equally you did spend money that at some level you ought to have known you hadn't earned - you knew you were off sick.  I'm not blaming you,  simply saying that nobody is to blame - or that equally the blame spreads around. Solutions are better. Don't talk to HR - they aren't there to help you. I doubt you are in a union either? So speak to your manager. Ask if a basic loan repayable over a longer period can be arranged. Many managers will go out to bat in a way that HR won't. For example i can arrange an advance - where i work HR can't.  It's my budget, my decision. Ask for what you need - no frills,  just what will get you by so that you don't end up struggling for even longer. Beyond that,  it's down to is there anyone that could help, or anything you can sell to get through the time until your next pay date. If you can access a local food bank that will provide some basic foods and allow cash to go to what it must - it will be adequate for a time,  if not entirely appealing. If it comes to the worst and you have no other help,  go to your local church. Whether you are a member or not,  most will try their very best to help in some way, and often have routes into support mechanisms that you won't. 

LinLui

Sorry I just noticed that you are in a union!  My union has emergency funds. You can raise a grievance, but I'm not convinced it will get you very far and it won't get you money! Ask the union for help. Our branch has welfare funds at our disposal, and I don't know many unions that don't have a system of welfare support for members in one off crisis. We can do both grants and loans, and in the sort of situation you describe we would do a 50/50 grant and loan.

The other thing to check is whether your union membership includes any sickness cover. Mine does. 

TELLIT01

Was the Fit Note delivered by hand or posted in?  Can you know with certainty when your line manager received it?

You were overpaid in the first payment, and acknowledge that you realised that, so surely should have realised that overpayment would be corrected at some point.  You should have set some of that overpayment aside for the following month so do bear some responsibility yourself, although I appreciate you medical state may have meant you weren't thinking clearly.

Grumpy_chap

You realised, but did not raise a query, that you had been overpaid (paid in full for April).
You now paid less in May because the overpayment was "caught-up".
Your position today is the same as if you had been paid less in April, and then the correct amount in May.

I suggest this is not worthy of a Grievance.

Savvy_Sue

ClothbumMum said:

My UNION have said I should raise a grievance of my manager as her not submitting the sick note on time has caused the error. Any thoughts? 

If your union is going to support you with this, it may be worth a shot, BUT I don't think that the date your manager submitted the fit note is necessarily going to be relevant: as Brie said:

Brie said:

Last place I worked any adjustments to wages needed to be submitted by about the 6th of the month to be processed properly for a payday of the 25th.  So that's likely the reason there was the overpayment in April and the horrendous deduction in May. 

Can you as a matter of urgency talk to your manager on Monday to request an advance on June's or even possibly July's pay to help see you through?  

The thing to be clear about is that the deduction is correct: it is the TIMING of the total deduction which has caused serious problems, although it's a fair point that if you know you are only going to get SSP while you are off sick, then you KNOW there's going to be a shortfall heading your way. 

One question is, what normally happens in these situations? When I was running payroll, I would make the manager aware of any one-off deductions to be made, and tell them to make the staff member aware (even if they were on long term sick leave, there would be reasonably regular contact). If the staff member requested a deduction to be spread out, we would do that, as long as they were now back at work - we wouldn't just let it run and run without reducing. 

But that was a payroll of 50, run in-house, where I knew everyone and everyone knew me. 

If what happened to you is what normally happens, then I'm not sure where a grievance could go.