Statutory sick pay: Campaigners name for reforms to stop staff from being pushed into poverty

May 14, 2023 at 8:54 AM

For all its seaside delights, Margate in Kent is among the most disadvantaged components of the UK. Amid the price of dwelling disaster, many households are struggling to make ends meet.

Falling ailing can turn into a headlong plunge into poverty – as Kyra Lloyd, a 25-year-old store assistant, found when she started experiencing agonising ache in her ankle and he or she was left unable to face.

“I started getting some very horrible, horrible pains. My foot was completely swollen, I couldn’t move.”

Doctors informed Kyra the metalwork holding her bones collectively since a childhood fracture had snapped – and with out surgical procedure she might find yourself completely in a wheelchair.

During the lengthy look forward to therapy she was signed off work. But statutory sick pay barely lined half her hire – not to mention another dwelling bills.

“I’m in so much debt now because of it,” she says.

“I’ve about £3,000 in debt from borrowing from individuals and getting loans as a result of I simply could not afford to stay. I could not pay my hire. It’s simply not sufficient.

“It’s embarrassing to ask people when you can’t even afford to eat.

“I ended up having simply gravy and bread for dinner as a result of I simply could not afford it – the query was do I’ve a roof over my head or meals? No one ought to have to decide on.

“Even things like washing your clothes… I was having to wash them in the bath at one point because I just couldn’t afford to use that much electricity. It’s so difficult. It’s not right.”

Kyra has now recovered and has a brand new job, however she’s continuously nervous in regards to the ache coming again.

“Every time I feel a slight twinge in my foot, I think – I can’t afford to go back on sick pay, I can’t afford another surgery. It’s a huge stress.”

Christopher Balmont, 57, has been working as a head chef in a restaurant for greater than a decade. His associate is unable to work as she cares for his or her daughter, who has particular academic wants.

Earlier this week, he was signed off work with melancholy and anxiousness. Statutory sick pay will solely cowl 1 / 4 of his regular revenue – and the stress of how one can pay the payments is making his situation worse.

“I don’t sleep, I feel anxious most of the time, and this makes me even more anxious,” he says.

“I’m worried about the whole situation and the amount you get. I would have thought it would be more. I haven’t had to claim it before, so it’s just a bit of a shock. And I had no choice. If I had a choice I’d be at work.

“It’s not simply me that is affected by my sickness, it is my household as effectively.”

While around half of workers are offered more generous levels of sick pay by their employers, a third are only entitled to the legal minimum.

What is statutory sick pay and how does it work?

Statutory sick pay is currently £109.40 a week, which works out at around a third of the minimum wage.

It is only paid from the fourth consecutive day of illness – during COVID this was temporarily changed so workers were entitled to support from day one, but that stopped last year.

Your employer does not have to pay if your average weekly earnings are less than £123 a week.

This means two million of the country’s lowest paid workers receive no sick pay at all – a situation which particularly affects those in jobs like cleaning, caring and security where zero-hours contracts are common and staff often work shifts for multiple employers. Self-employed people are not covered either.

In 2019, the federal government pledged to enhance and increase statutory sick pay to cowl all low-paid staff for the primary time.

The thought was strongly supported within the ensuing public session, with 75% of respondents in favour, together with massive and small employers. But in the course of the pandemic that promise was deserted.

Research on minimal revenue requirements

Matt Padley, from Loughborough University’s centre for analysis in social coverage, has calculated the affect of falling ailing and counting on statutory sick pay within the gentle of his analysis on minimal revenue requirements.

He and his crew produce the annual minimal revenue commonplace calculation, which determines the weekly funds wanted by households to keep up a socially acceptable lifestyle within the UK.

For a single individual dwelling exterior London that determine in 2022 was £489.20 every week.

Under statutory sick pay, a employee’s earnings are lower than 25% of what they would wish simply to satisfy that minimal commonplace.

In the primary week of sickness, when cost solely begins from the fourth day, that determine is 10%.

Within a month, a single grownup beforehand on common earnings of £630 every week would face a shortfall of £1,230 – in three months, it is £3,862.

“Without any other support from the state, all workers receiving statutory sick pay or no sick pay would fall well short of what they need for a minimum socially acceptable standard of living,” Mr Padley says.

That equates to greater than 12 million individuals.

People are being compelled onto advantages system

The marketing campaign group Safe Sick Pay, a coalition of charities and commerce unions, is asking for statutory sick pay to be elevated in keeping with the minimal wage, for all staff to be lined, and for funds to start on the primary day of sickness.

“Currently if these workers fall sick, they either have to go into work sick – making their condition worse and potentially infecting other people – or they stay at home and do the right thing, but then they’re left unable to pay the bills,” says marketing campaign director Amanda Walters.

She argues low charges of statutory sick pay are forcing individuals onto the advantages system – as ranges of help are considerably increased.

“If you fall sick and you only get the legal minimum sick pay then very quickly you’re going to fall out of the workforce, going onto benefits and to universal credit. And the longer you’re on universal credit, the harder it is to get back into the workforce.

“That is why we need to see a hyperlink between these which can be sick and their employer not pushing them onto common credit score.

“A lot of these people want to remain in work. They don’t want to go onto universal credit. And at the moment, the current system is costing the taxpayer £55bn.”

‘Sick pay reform is overdue’

Encouraging individuals to return to employment after a interval of long-term illness was a key precedence of the chancellor’s “Back to Work” budget in March.

But statutory sick pay was not talked about, and a few senior Tories, together with former cupboard minister Sir Robert Buckland, argue sick pay reform must be a part of the technique.

“Now’s the time for action,” he says.

“We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people who, through no fault of their own, might get ill and who end up staying off work for longer because of the disincentives that are caused at the moment by the lack of reach of statutory sick pay.

“We want a variety of measures to fight financial inactivity and lack of productiveness. And it appears to me {that a} reform to sick pay is overdue.

‘A win-win for employers’

“It’s not just a compassionate move, it’s a common-sense move. It’s a pro-business move. It’s a productivity enhancing move.

“It’s a win-win for employers, as a result of for the time being there is a disincentive to even announce any sickness in any respect, and that may result in additional issues down the road. And fairly often longer-term absence is disastrous for small employers who actually get hit onerous by that.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said the government has a “robust monitor report” of getting people off benefits and back into work, and that the number of people who are economically inactive is going down.

“We are implementing a variety of initiatives supporting disabled individuals and folks with well being situations not simply to begin, however to remain and reach work,” they added.