Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme (SSPRS) reintroduced

This temporary scheme  is to support employers facing heightened levels of sickness absence due to COVID-19. The SSPRS will refund small and medium-sized employers’ COVID-related Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) costs for up to two weeks per employee.

An employer qualifies if:

• the PAYE payroll scheme was created and started on or before 30 November 2021
• the employer had fewer than 250 employees on 30 November 2021 across all PAYE payroll schemes (this includes connected companies). Charities can also use the scheme.

The claim and employee eligibility

The repayment will cover up to 2 weeks SSP starting from the first ‘qualifying’ day of sickness. A qualifying day is a day an employee usually works on.

The claim applies for periods of sickness which start on or after 21 December 2021. Where the  period of sickness absence started earlier, then the claim is restricted to the portion of absence from 21 December 2021 only.

The claim is only for employees unable to work because they:

• have coronavirus symptoms
• are self-isolating because someone they live with has symptoms
• are self-isolating because they have been notified by the NHS or public health bodies that they have come into contact with someone with coronavirus
• have been notified by the NHS to self-isolate before surgery for up to 14 days.

You can make more than one claim per employee, but not exceeding 2 weeks in total. A claim under the previous scheme for a specific employee does not prevent a new 2 week claim for that employee under the reintroduced scheme.

State aid limits and SSPRS

Since 1 January 2021 EU state aid rules no longer apply in the UK, except for:

• aid in-scope of the Northern Ireland Protocol
• Structural Funds

The UK is now bound by other international obligations on subsidy control. This includes the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

Some subsidies are outside the scope of the Trade Co-operation Agreement. This includes subsidies that are from any public authority that are:

• under 325,000 Special Drawing Rights - an International Money Fund unit of currency and
• made to a single business over a three-year period.

Subsidies that are below this limit are treated as payments that are too small to be covered by regulations. These are called ‘de minimis’ payments.

The Statutory Sick Pay Rebate scheme is a subsidy which counts towards the 325,000 Special Drawing Rights subsidy threshold.

To check that the rebate (and any other relevant subsidies) is within the threshold, there is a Special Drawing Rights calculator.

SDRs per Currency unit and Currency units per SDR -- last five days (imf.org)

Upcoming courses covering  Employment and Payroll Tax

Further developments affecting employers, employees and payroll will be included as relevant in  the following  Mercia Live courses: