Coronavirus: Government support for Businesses paying sick pay to employees

See our article on the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme here, the Government have set out the following additional measure in respect of Support for Businesses paying sick pay to employees.

This is not yet in place, the government is bringing forward legislation to provide a rebate scheme for small and medium sized UK based businesses and employers to reclaim statutory sick pay (SSP) paid for sickness caused by the Coronavirus . This is part of the Coronavirus bill submitted to the House of Commons on Thursday, the government hope it is implemented in full by the middle of w/c 23^rd March.

Small and medium sized business is defined in the Companies Act 2006 (CA) as follows:

Companies qualify as small (section 382 of the CA) in a year it satisfies two or more of:

• Turnover: not more than £10.2m;
• Balance Sheet Total: not more than 5.1m;
• Employees: not more than 50 (for this scheme this is calculated as at 28^th February).

Companies qualify as medium (section 465 of the CA) in a year it satisfies two or more of:

• Turnover: not more than £36m;
• Balance Sheet Total: not more than £18m;
• Employees: not more than 250 (for this scheme this is calculated as at 28^th February).

The eligibility criteria for the scheme will be as follows:

• the refund will cover up to 2 weeks’ SSP per eligible employee who has been off work because of the Coronavirus;
• employers will be able to reclaim expenditure for any employee who has claimed SSP as a result of the Coronavirus;
• employers should maintain records of staff absences and payments of SSP, but employees will not need to provide a GP fit note.

The eligible period for the scheme will commence the day after the regulations on the extension of SSP to those staying at home comes into force and will apply retrospectively from 13^th March 2020.