Your employees are entitled to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if they take time off due to illness. But how much is SPP? Find out more about the SSP rate and your responsibilities when staff are off sick.
What is Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)?
An employee may be eligible for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) if they’re ill and can’t work. They need to have been off work for four or more days in a row (including non-working days).
The first three days are called ‘waiting days’ and you start paying SSP from the fourth ‘qualifying day’ (the day your employee is usually needed to work).
A day doesn’t count as a sick day if they’ve worked for more than a minute before they’ve gone home ill.
You might have your own sick pay scheme, which lets you offer more than the standard SSP rate. If you have one, you should write it into your employees’ contracts (schemes like this are known as ‘contractual’ or ‘occupational’ sick pay).
You should record accurate details of your employee’s absence and their sick pay payments.
How much is Statutory Sick Pay?
You use the weekly SSP rate to calculate how much SSP to pay your employees.
SSP rate in the UK
The SSP rate in 2021-22 is £96.35 a week for up to 28 weeks for employees who are too ill to work. The SSP rate was £95.85 a week in 2020-21.
You can use a daily SSP rate if your employee isn’t off work for the whole week. The daily SSP rate depends on how many qualifying days your employee usually works and how many days they’re off sick.
You can see the daily SSP rate at gov.uk.
SSP calculator
Gov.uk has a Statutory Sick Pay calculator you can use to work out how much to pay your employees who are off sick.
Use gov.uk’s sick pay calculator here.
Do I qualify for Statutory Sick Pay?
Gov.uk says that to qualify for SSP your employee should:
have an employment contract
have worked under the contract
have been ill for four or more days in a row, including non-working days
earn £120 a week on average
give you notice of their illness
give you proof of their illness after they’ve had seven days off
Acas (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) says that agency, casual and zero-hour employees can get SSP if they meet the eligibility criteria.
But some exceptions could mean your employee isn’t eligible for sick pay. These include employees who’ve already had the maximum 28 weeks of SSP and employees who are getting Statutory Maternity Pay (there are different rules in this situation).
Employees could also have ‘linked’ periods of sickness if they’re ill regularly. Linked periods mean that SSP entitlement is used up gradually. These linked periods must last four or more days each and be eight weeks or less apart – so, if someone is off for four weeks and is ill again within 56 days of going back to work, they’ll have 24 weeks of SSP left.
But if a series of linked periods lasts more than three years, employees aren’t eligible for SSP.
Read more about SSP eligibility and the exceptions at gov.uk.
Statutory Sick Pay form SSP1
If your employee isn’t eligible for SSP or their SSP is ending, they might be able to claim other benefits like Universal Credit and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). You need to send these employees form SSP1 so they can claim these benefits.
For employees who aren’t entitled to SSP, you have to send them SSP1 within seven days of them taking time off sick.
If an employee is receiving SSP but their situation changes and they no longer qualify, you have to send them SSP1 within seven days of their sick pay ending. If their SSP is going to end before their illness does, you have to send them SSP1 on or before the beginning of the 23rd week of sick pay.
How to claim Statutory Sick Pay for coronavirus
You can only reclaim SSP from the government if your employees have received coronavirus-related SSP – you can’t reclaim SSP if they’ve been off for other reasons.
You can reclaim SSP if your:
employee was off work with Covid-19, or self-isolating because of Covid-19
employee was off work because they were shielding due to coronavirus (before 26 April 2021 in Scotland, before 12 April 2021 in Northern Ireland and before 1 April 2021 in England and Wales)
PAYE payroll scheme started on or before 28 February 2020
business had fewer than 250 employees on 28 February 2020
Your employee can get SSP from the first day they’re due to work, rather than day four. They don’t need to have a physical doctor’s fit note, and you don’t need one to claim back SSP. Instead, you can ask them to give you an isolation note without seeing a doctor – they can do this by going to NHS 111 online and completing a form.
If they’re shielding because they’re at risk of severe illness because of coronavirus, you can ask them to give you a letter from their GP or a health authority telling them they need to stay at home.
The CIPD (the professional body for HR and people development) says that SSP is available to those who are self-isolating based on medical advice, or are ill and showing symptoms. SSP won’t generally be available to those who are self-isolating without written medical advice or have no symptoms.
You need to keep records of the SSP you’ve paid because of coronavirus for three years after you received payment, including:
dates employees were off sick
which days were qualifying days
why they were off work (e.g. they were ill, shielding or self-isolating)
National Insurance numbers
Read our guide about claiming back coronavirus-related SSP.
Is there anything more you’d like to know about Statutory Sick Pay and the SSP rate? Let us know in the comments below.
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