End to the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme

An update from our Employment team regarding the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme.

As part of its measures to protect businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic, the government introduced the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme (the “Scheme”) to reimburse a proportion of Statutory Sick Pay (“SSP”) payments to employers for coronavirus related absences. The Scheme previously ran from 13 March 2020 to 30 September 2021 and allowed eligible employers with fewer than 250 employees to apply for a refund of up to two weeks’ SSP per eligible employee. At the same time, the rules on “waiting days” for the purposes of claiming SSP were suspended in respect of coronavirus related absences from 13 March 2020 to allow for SSP to be claimed from the first day of incapacity.

The Re-Introduction

The Scheme was re-introduced on 14 January 2022 when the nation was struck by the Omicron variant. The re-introduced scheme largely mirrored the previous scheme and entitled eligible employers with fewer than 250 employees (as at 30 November 2021) to be able recover up to two weeks of SSP for each eligible employee (for coronavirus related absences) between 21 December 2021 and 24 March 2022 (the “Relevant Period”).

Further Governmental Annoucement

Despite calls by the Federation of Small Business and the Trades Union Congress to make the Scheme permanent, the government has this week (WC 21 Feb)  announced that the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme will close after 17 March 2022. Employers now have up to and including 24 March 2022 to submit any final claims covering the Relevant Period and to amend any claims that they have already submitted.

Once the Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme closes, it is expected that the normal rules on SSP will return. This means that the first three qualifying days in any period of incapacity will be excluded. SSP will therefore only be payable from day 4 in the usual way.