| HR & EMPLOYMENT LAW
Jackie Le Poidevin, Editor-in-Chief, HR Adviser |
SSP Rebate for Covid Absences to End this Month
The Coronavirus Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme is to end on 30 September 2021, the government has announced. As a result, if you’re a small or medium-sized employer, you will not be able to recoup statutory sick pay (SSP) for staff members who cannot work due to Covid-19 after that date. Instead, you will have to cover the full cost of the SSP.
The government introduced the rebate scheme soon after the start of the pandemic in the UK. You are eligible for the scheme if you:
- Are claiming for an employee who is entitled to SSP due to Covid-19.
- Have already paid the employee’s sick pay.
- Have a PAYE payroll scheme that was started on or before 28 February 2020.
- Had fewer than 250 employees on 28 February 2020 across all your PAYE payroll schemes.
What are the Current Rules?
If you’re eligible, you can currently reclaim up to 2 weeks’ SSP from HMRC for employees under all types of employment contracts (including zero-hours, part-time, fixed-term and agency contracts) who were unable to work due to:
- Experiencing Covid-19 symptoms.
- Self-isolating because someone they live with had symptoms.
- Self-isolating because they were in contact with someone with Covid-19.
- Shielding after receiving a letter advising them to do so.
- Self-isolating before surgery.
What’s Changing?
Following the announcement, you can only claim for absences on or before 30 September 2021.
You must submit claims for periods of sickness before 1 October 2021 by 31 December 2021.
What Else Do We Need to Know?
From 1 October, eligible employees who cannot work due to Covid will still be entitled to SSP of £96.35 a week from Day 1 of their absence, which you will have to fund. In contrast, if the absence is not related to the coronavirus, you only have to pay SSP from Day 4 of the sickness absence.
Employees who cannot work due to Covid do not have to give you a doctor’s fit note to be eligible for SSP. But you can ask them to give you one of the following:
- An isolation note from NHS 111.
- A shielding note or a letter from their doctor or health authority advising them to shield.
Employees returning to the UK who are required to quarantine and cannot work from home do not qualify for SSP unless they also meet one of the criteria set out in the ‘current rules’ section.
What Records Do We Need to Keep?
If you’ve claimed back SSP from HMRC, you must keep the following records for 3 years from the date you received the payment:
- The dates the employee was off sick.
- The SSP paid.
- The reason they said they were off work (along with any evidence provided).
- The employee’s National Insurance number.
You must also print or save your state aid declaration (from your claim summary) and keep this until 31 December 2024.
HMRC may need to see these records if there’s a dispute over payment of SSP.
| HEALTH & SAFETY
Paul Smith, Co-Editor-in-Chief, Risk Assessment & Compliance; Editorial Board Member, Health & Safety Adviser |
Occupational Road Risk: HSE Launches New Web-based Guide
What’s the most dangerous activity your employees regularly carry out? Many would say it is driving to, from, or for work. As the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launches its new road risk guidelines (and the Highway Code is updated) we highlight what’s new, as well as key actions for managers to ensure this particular hazard does not slip below the radar.
What’s New?
Several factors have prompted the HSE to update its INDG382 ‘Driving at work’ guidance, last issued back in 2014. The guidance now reflects:
- The expansion of the gig economy, coupled with court decisions that workers should get the same protection as employees.
- The use of scooters/small motorbikes (often ridden by young riders) for food deliveries.
- The increased use/availability of vehicle telematics that enable driver behaviour to be recorded and scrutinised with a level of detail never previously available.
- The growth of the ‘grey fleet’ – where people use their own vehicles for business travel on their employer’s behalf. Such vehicles are often funded by cash allowances provided by employers as part of the individual’s benefits package.
What’s Not Changed?
Many of the core messages from INDG382 are though retained, for example:
- Driving for work creates significant health and safety risks that employers are expected to manage.
- Employers should carry out a risk assessment and set up suitable control measures (safeguards) – as inspectors would expect to see for other workplace risks such as hazardous chemicals, moving machinery or work at height.
- Minimising the risk requires a combination of safe drivers and safe vehicles.
- Proper work/journey planning is vital to avoid excessive fatigue.
Case in Point: Driver Fatigue
One of the few road risk prosecutions on record followed a double fatality to rail workers.
They were returning home to Doncaster by van having worked through the night in Stevenage; they had been on the road for much of the previous day. The driver (who, aged 20, was under the insurer’s 25 age limit) fell asleep, leading to a collision in which the vehicle caught fire, killing both men.
Last year, their employer was fined £400,000 plus £300,000 costs after being found guilty of health and safety charges.
Both men were on zero-hours contracts.
Manage Phones and Other Driver Distractions
The guidance recognises that technology has tended to increase the risk of driver distraction, which can be fatal on today’s busier-than-ever roads. Eating and drinking at the wheel have also triggered serious accidents.
While the use of phones that are not hands-free is a criminal offence, many firms have heeded the research that suggests that it is the distraction of the call rather than the physical handling of the phone that is the problem: as a result, they ban or at least restrict phone use while driving – even where the vehicle has hands-free capability or the driver uses a Bluetooth headset. For a personal insight into the human consequences of ‘distracted driving’, click here.
5 Action Points
- Review your driving policy to ensure it’s in line with the new HSE guidance.
- Make sure it covers gig workers as well as employees, and all vehicles, not just those that are company-owned.
- Ensure drivers are aware of the latest Highway Code. There are new rules from this week relating to smart motorways, and further changes are planned to give greater protection to vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, cyclists and other riders.
- Check that your use of phones policy strikes the right balance between the need to keep in touch and the need to keep people safe. The new guidelines state unequivocally: ‘using a hands-free mobile phone increases the likelihood of a collision’.
Don’t forget your basic licence checks: no-one should be driving for you if they cannot do so legally.
| PAYROLL
Sarah Bradford, Editor-in-Chief, Pay & Benefits Adviser |
National Insurance Increases and New Health and Social Care Levy: Your Key Points
In a bid to address the lack of funding for social care, a new health and social care levy is to be introduced from 2023/24. As a temporary measure prior to the introduction of the health and social care levy, National Insurance contributions will be increased for 2022/23 only. The health and social care levy and the National Insurance increases will affect both employers and employees.
National Insurance Increases: How this Will Work
For the 2022/23 tax year, the rates of primary and secondary Class 1, Class 1A, Class 1B and Class 4 National Insurance contributions will be increased by 1.25% to provide funding for health and social care.
As a result of the increases, for 2022/23, the main primary rate of employee’s Class 1 National Insurance (payable on earnings above the primary threshold up to the upper earnings limit) will be 13.25%, while the additional primary rate, payable on earnings above the upper earnings limit, will be 3.25%.
As far as employers are concerned, for 2022/23, the secondary Class 1 rate will be 15.05%. This is payable on earnings in excess of the secondary threshold.
Where the employee is under the age of 21, and apprentice under the age of 25, a Freeport employee or an armed forces veteran in the first year of their first civilian employment since leaving the armed forces, secondary contributions are only payable on earnings to the extent that they exceed the relevant upper secondary threshold – the 1.25% increase does not apply to earnings liable to a zero secondary rate.
The Class 1A percentage and the Class 1B percentage are aligned with the secondary Class 1 rate, and these too will increase to 15.05% for 2022/23 only.
The rates will revert to their 2021/22 levels from 6 April 2023. From that date, the new health and social care levy will apply instead.
Health and Social Care Levy: How this Will Work
A new tax, the health and social care levy, is to be introduced from 2023/24. It will linked to National Insurance, but is not National Insurance. The levy, set at 1.25% of earnings or profits, will be payable by anyone who is liable to pay a qualifying National Insurance contribution. Qualifying National Insurance contributions are:
- Primary Class 1 National Insurance contributions.
- Secondary Class 1 National Insurance contributions.
- Class 1A National Insurance contributions.
- Class 1B National Insurance contributions.
- Class 4 National Insurance contributions payable by the self-employed.
Employees will be liable for the health and social care levy on earnings in excess of the primary threshold applying for Class 1 National Insurance contributions.
However, unlike National Insurance, liability for the health and social care levy does not stop when the individual reaches state pension age. Thus, where a person who has reached state pension age has earnings from employment in excess of the primary earnings threshold, from 2023/24, they will be liable to pay the health and social care levy (set at 1.25% of their earnings), but not National Insurance.
Employers will pay the social care levy on the earnings of employees and apprentices to the extent that they exceed the upper secondary threshold or, as appropriate, the relevant upper secondary threshold.
Employers will also be liable to pay the health and social care levy on the value of benefits in kind liable to Class 1A National Insurance contributions, and also on sporting testimonials in excess of £100,000 and taxable termination payments in excess of £30,000. Where a PAYE Settlement Agreement (PSA) is in place, the health and social care levy will also be payable on tax and value of items within the PSA on which a liability to Class 1B National Insurance contributions arises.
The health and social care levy, while separate from National Insurance, will be collected in the same way as National Insurance.