Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) – Your Payroll United Kingdom

Statutory sick pay is paid to employees who are unable to work due to sickness or illness. It is the minimum statutory requirement that employers must pay to their employee and is separate to any company sick policy that may be in place.

You can read more about SSP eligibility on the HMRC website.

NOTE: Unlike other statutory payments, you are no longer able to reclaim SSP.

Getting Started

There are two methods of entering SSP. The preferred method is via the employee screen rather than the pay run as it offers a massive benefit to your time, which is that you do not have to wait until you create the pay run to enter the SSP.

The benefit of entering it in the employee screen rather than the pay run is that you can enter it as soon as the employee notifies you of their absence - i.e. before the pay run exists, so you don't defer all the work to the time of creating the pay run - then when you do create the pay run, it will pick up all the absences that you have entered during the month.

Pay SSP through the Employee's details page

You can enter SSP on the Employee's Statutory Payments page (this is the preferred way). Once you are on the employee's statutory Payments page you will need to:

Click the 'Add' button on the right hand side of the screen as pictured above.
You will now see the statutory leave context panel. Select 'Statutory Sick Pay' from the drop down at the top of the context panel.
Select the 'From' and 'To' dates for the total SSP period.
You can decide if you want to 'reduce the basic pay by statutory amount', 'do not pay basic pay' or 'pay basic pay as entered'.
If you wish to override the average weekly earnings value, you can tick the 'Average weekly earnings' check box and enter in an alternate average weekly earnings value.
Select the 'Qualifying days' for this SSP period. Qualifying days should be set to the days your employee normally works. These are populated by default, based on the employees pay run defaults and the 'advanced working hours' if they're provided.
By adding the SSP in the employee details page you can add a document to the period of illness (ie the fit note) and you can write notes.

The leave when entered through the employee details page will then automatically be applied to the pay run when the pay run is created.

Paying SSP within the pay run

You can pay SSP by following these steps:

From within a pay run, click on the employee you wish to pay SSP for, then click 'Actions' > 'Pay Statutory Leave'.
You will now see the statutory leave context panel. Select 'Statutory Sick Pay' from the drop down at the top of the context panel.
Select the 'From' and 'To' dates for the total SSP period. NOTE - these dates will default to the first and last date of the current pay period.
You can decide if you want to 'reduce the basic pay by statutory amount', 'do not pay basic pay' or 'pay basic pay as entered'.
If you wish to override the average weekly earnings value, you can tick the 'Average weekly earnings' check box and enter in an alternate average weekly earnings value.
Select the 'Qualifying days' for this SSP period. Qualifying days should be set to the days your employee normally works. These are populated by default, based on the employees pay run defaults and the 'advanced working hours' if they're provided.
Once you've entered the SSP period details, click 'Calculate'
- If the employee is eligible for SSP, you'll see the amount of SSP the employee is entitled to for the current period.
- If the employee is not eligible for SSP, you'll see the reason they're not eligible for SSP.
Click the 'Apply' button to save the SSP record and apply it to the pay run.

Once this has been saved you can go to the Employee's details page > 'Statutory Payments' and you will be able to view the SSP details.

SSP Log

When entering SSP you can click "view log" to get more information on how the SSP values were calculated. Key data that can be viewed in the log are:

Earnings over that period.
The calculation to confirm the average weekly earnings (AWE).
Confirmation that Ben qualifies for SSP.
The qualifying days applied.

Link SSP periods

SSP periods can be linked should an employee be off sick again for more than 4 consecutive days within a period of eight weeks from a previous SSP period.

SSP periods are automatically linked within the system.

Employee Not Entitled to SSP

In cases where you have an employee that isn’t entitled to SSP, you need to issue an SSP1 form. You can indicate that an employee is not entitled to SSP by following these steps:

Select the "Do not pay" option.
Enter the reason for not paying SSP from the drop down list.
Click 'Save; to save and apply this option.

The SSP1 form will then be made available for completion saved against the employee.

Warnings

If an employee has reached 23 weeks of SSP, upon entering the sickness dates a warning box will appear to alert you to them reaching 23 weeks.
If your employee has reached the cap of 28 weeks SSP you will be unable to pay any more SSP and will be given a warning in the SSP log.

Helpful Hints

You have the option to override the average weekly earnings.
If your employee has reached the cap of 28 weeks SSP you will be unable to pay any more SSP and will be given a warning in the SSP log.
You can utilise the attachment area within the SSP record to store any sick certificates.
You can set up your employees qualifying days pattern in 'Employee Details' > 'Pay run Defaults' > 'Standard Work Week' then click on ‘Advanced’ so you can edit the days your employee works.