The government is looking to reform Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to ensure it better supports employers to retain staff who experience health problems.
Speaking at the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, Amber Rudd, secretary of state for work and pensions, announced that the government will shortly consult on reforming SSP.
“The current system is failing to support those who fall ill in work, one of several factors causing older people to choose retirement when they still have a huge amount to offer. One in four men, and one in three women, have not worked for at least five years before they reach State Pension age,” she said.
“This is a lose–lose situation; employers lose the skills and experience of those workers, and employees miss those vital extra years of earning and saving which could boost the quality of their retirement.”
The government first pledged to review SSP in its November 2017 green paper Improving Lives – The Future of Work, Health and Disability. It suggested that it wanted to make SSP more flexible to enable phased returns to work and to help support those with long-term health conditions. It also pledged to improve and better publicise existing SSP guidance and to reconsider the eligibility for SSP and how it is accrued.
