If you’re an employer, find out if you can use the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme to claim back employees’ coronavirus-related Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). You can claim back up to 2 weeks of SSP if:

• you have already paid your employee’s sick pay
• you’re claiming for an employee who’s eligible for sick pay due to coronavirus
• you have a PAYE payroll scheme that was created and started on or before 28 February 2020
• you had fewer than 250 employees on 28 February 2020 across all your PAYE payroll schemes

Employees do not have to give you a doctor’s fit note for you to make a claim. But you can ask them to give you either:
an isolation note from NHS 111 – if they are self-isolating and cannot work because of coronavirus (COVID-19)
a ‘shielding note’ or a letter from their doctor or health authority advising them to shield because they’re at high risk of severe illness from coronavirus

The scheme covers all types of employment contracts, including:

• full-time employees
• part-time employees
• employees on agency contracts
• employees on flexible or zero-hour contracts
• fixed term contracts (until the date their contract ends)

You can make a claim for SSP paid due to coronavirus to employees who have been transferred to you under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) if you had:

• a PAYE scheme that was created and started on or before 28 February 2020
• fewer than 250 employees (including TUPE transferred employees) across all PAYE payroll schemes on 28 February 2020

If you did not have a PAYE scheme that was created on or before 28 February 2020, but the previous employer did, you can make a claim if they had fewer than 250 employees across all their PAYE schemes on that date.

As the new employer, you can only make claims for SSP that you have paid, a claim cannot include SSP paid by the previous employer.

If you’re claiming for wage costs through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

You can claim back from both the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and the Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme for the same employee but not for the same period of time.

You must keep records of SSP that you’ve paid and want to claim back from HMRC.

You must keep the following records for 3 years after the date you receive the payment for your claim:

• the dates the employee was off sick
• which of those dates were qualifying days
• the reason they said they were off work – if they had symptoms, someone they lived with had symptoms or they were shielding
• the employee’s National Insurance number

You can choose how you keep records of your employees’ sickness absence. HMRC may need to see these records if there’s a dispute over payment of SSP.

PLEASE NOTE: Those categorised as extremely clinically vulnerable (‘ECV’) are no longer advised to shield from 1 April 2021 and therefore employers should be aware that they no longer become eligible for SSP on the basis of being advised to shield.

The online service you’ll use to claim back Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is now available.

Please contact QHR Solutions for any queries on this or any other employment related queries – always pleased to help!