Government To Support Employers by Paying Two Weeks of Sick Pay Budget Reveals

The Government will support businesses during the Coronavirus outbreak by paying the first two weeks of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), it has been revealed.

The emergency measure forms part of a package of reliefs announced in Budget 2020.

According to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak, the Government will help businesses experiencing “increased costs or disruptions to their cash flow as a result of COVID-19”, such as long periods of employee absence.

This includes supporting small and medium-sized employers (those with fewer than 250 employees) to cope with the extra costs of SSP by refunding up to two weeks per employee.

According to the Budget 2020 document, employer size will be determined by the number of people employed as of February 2020. Additionally:

• employers will be able to reclaim expenditure for any employee who has claimed SSP (according to the new eligibility criteria) as a result of COVID-19
• employers should maintain records of staff absences, but should not require employees to provide a GP fit note
• the eligible period for the scheme will commence from the day on which the regulations extending SSP to self-isolators come into force
• while existing systems are not designed to facilitate such employer refunds for SSP, the government will work with employers over the coming months to set up a repayment mechanism for employers as soon as possible

Commenting on the measure, the Chancellor said: “The Budget announces a set of measures to provide support to businesses during this temporary period by either reducing their costs or bridging cashflow problems arising from the outbreak, and to protect people’s jobs.”

For help and advice complying with your employer obligations during the COVID-19 outbreak, get in touch with our expert team today.

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