Sick pay entitlement confusion

naaads_xo

Hi all

I have been off on sick leave since May 2025, I was being paid company pay until July 2025 and then moved on to SSP. My contract says I am entitled to 13 weeks full sick pay (CSP) + 15 weeks SSP. Does the 28 week clock start from when I was first moved to SSP or from when I was first absent which was in May? Thank you

chrisbur

The weekly SSP payment is the minimum figure which an employer must pay.  SSP usually starts to be paid on the third qualifying day (may vary if employee had a period of sickness in the eight weeks before the present sickness)  Assuming the full 28 weeks entitlement, then that 28 weeks starts on day three of the SSP entitlement.  Any payment made by the employer which is equal to or greater than the SSP due for the same period counts as SSP having been paid.  So the company sick pay can be counted against the SSP but if the first three days of the sickness were paid as company sick pay (ie no waiting days) and not paid as SSP (ie three waiting days ) then they cannot be counted against the SSP entitlement.
In this case assuming there was no SSP linking (ie previous SSP qualifying absence) and company sick pay started on the first day of sickness then SSP would be payable for 15 weeks and 3 days after company sick pay ended.  
Also the end of SSP entitlement means that there are in many cases an entitlement to some other benefit, details of which should be given to you as the end of SSP approaches on an SSP1 form. 

TELLIT01

Companies work in different ways.  Some include the SSP payment in the 'Company Pay' others don't.  If SSP has been included, the entitlement to SSP will end 28 weeks and 3 days after the commencement of the period of sickness.

Savvy_Sue

TELLIT01 said:

Companies work in different ways.  Some include the SSP payment in the 'Company Pay' others don't.  If SSP has been included, the entitlement to SSP will end 28 weeks and 3 days after the commencement of the period of sickness.

I agree that companies work in different ways, but if the CSP is higher than SSP then it is deemed that the SSP has been paid. I am therefore pretty certain that the entitlement to SSP ends 28 weeks (and I'm not going to argue about the 3 days) after the sickness starts, NOT when the CSP ends. 

In my experience, the employer should be recording all sick leave and recording it through the payroll system, and thus notifying it to HMRC. I'm sure this was done back in the days when employers would receive a partial refund of SSP, and also when a payment was made for Covid related sickness. Employers may feel that there is no benefit in continuing to record it, BUT it definitely makes a difference to the employee if the correct dates are NOT logged accurately!

I feel it's helpful if the payslip shows what's being paid. Ours showed CSP, and SSP, and then deducted the SSP because we were paying SSP as part of CSP and not in addition to CSP. I do not think anyone ever read their payslip fully before coming to complain about the deduction, and I would point to the addition. I would sigh, but actually I was just glad they were actually LOOKING at their payslip!

TELLIT01

Savvy_Sue said:

TELLIT01 said:

Companies work in different ways.  Some include the SSP payment in the 'Company Pay' others don't.  If SSP has been included, the entitlement to SSP will end 28 weeks and 3 days after the commencement of the period of sickness.

I agree that companies work in different ways, but if the CSP is higher than SSP then it is deemed that the SSP has been paid. I am therefore pretty certain that the entitlement to SSP ends 28 weeks (and I'm not going to argue about the 3 days) after the sickness starts, NOT when the CSP ends. 

In theory SSP entitlement ends after 28 weeks of sickness.  When I worked on benefits processing for DWP I often received SSP1 forms showing entitlement ending much later.  Typically 28 weeks after entitlement to full company sick pay ended.