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Notification of sickness and how to claim benefits

This guidance for managers applied to all academic-related and university support staff.

Under the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982 and subsequent legislation, employers are responsible for paying certain prescribed rates of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) to their employees, regardless of service but subject to certain exclusions, for up to 28 weeks of sickness in any period of incapacity for work.

Some members of staff may find themselves excluded from these arrangements, perhaps because they are over state pension age, or are paid less than the national insurance contribution lower limit, or have already received 28 weeks' SSP within the tax year. If excluded for these or any of the other stated reasons, the employee will be sent the appropriate form by Payroll to enable the individual to forward a claim for State Benefit to the Contributions Agency. SSP payments will be made as part of salary, and will therefore be liable to tax and national insurance deductions.

The procedures under which an employee may apply for, and qualify for, sickness benefit are summarised

• Immediate notification of sickness
• Sickness absence from work for four to seven days - self certification
• Sickness absence from work for more than seven days - doctor's certificate
• Notification to payroll
• Withholding of sick pay
• Qualifying days
• Sickness during annual holiday
• SSP and the University's own sick pay scheme

Immediate notification of sickness

If an employee is unable to attend for work because of illness he or she, or someone on his or her behalf, should inform the appropriate person in the department (if in doubt, the departmental administrator or equivalent) by telephone on the first day of absence from work. If it is not convenient to telephone, a note written on the first day of absence should be sent. If an employee fails to provide such notification without good reason, sick pay (including payment under the University's scheme) will be withheld.

Immediately sickness absence is notified to the department, a record should be made which includes the date of notification of absence and the reason for the absence. It is important that sickness absence records are completed accurately (see sickness during annual holiday and the section on SSP). If notification was not given on the first day of absence from work, departments will wish to consider whether to withhold SSP and University sick pay. See sickness absence from work - self certification, doctor's certificate and notification to payroll sections for further guidance.

Sickness absence from work for four to seven days - self certification

If an employee is absent through sickness for four to seven calendar days, he or she should be asked by the department to complete a self-certification form on return to work. (The University feels obliged to point out that false statements on this form could lead to prosecution by the Contributions Agency and/or disciplinary action by the University.)

Once submitted the Self-certification form (97kb) should be added to the employee's sickness record. The document is private and confidential and should be treated as such by all who handle it.

Sickness absence from work for more than seven days - doctor's certificate

If an employee is absent from work because of sickness for more than seven calendar days, he or she should obtain a doctor's certificate which should be sent to the department as soon as possible. The employee should continue to send in doctor's certificates ('Fit Note') until the doctor decides that he or she is fit to return to work.

Please note that even though a doctor's certificate is not required for SSP purposes until an employee has been absent from work for more than seven calendar days, the employee should nevertheless visit his or her doctor before that date if he or she feels sufficiently ill to require medical treatment. If the doctor issues a certificate at that stage, it should be forwarded to the department immediately.

Notification to payroll

The only times that the Payroll Office needs notifying of sickness absence are:

• when the length of the absence exceeds four months. Notification should be in writing and signed by an authorised Payroll signatory. Periods of absence of more than four days' duration which occur within 8 weeks of each other can be 'linked' and need to be taken into account when reporting absences that exceed four months.
• when an employee's pay needs to be reduced to half or no pay. Payroll should be notified in these cases on a Payroll and Contractual Change form.

See Sickness absence - recording and monitoring for further details.

Withholding of sick pay

The University may withhold statutory sick pay (and sick pay paid out under its own sick pay scheme) if it has good reason to believe that an employee's illness is not genuine. If the University decides to withhold payment of statutory sick pay for any reason, the employee will be so informed in writing. If an employee disagrees with this decision to withhold payment, he or she should get in touch with his or her departmental administrator and raise the matter informally in the first instance. It is open to the employee to progress the matter through the grievance procedure if necessary. If, after this, an employee still claims that he or she is entitled to Statutory Sick Pay, he or she may apply to an Adjudication Officer of the Benefits Agency, who will decide incapacity on the facts.

Qualifying days

The statutory sick pay legislation requires that an employer must agree those days which are to count as qualifying days for statutory sick pay. The question of qualifying days has been raised within the joint committees representing employees within the University and it has been agreed that an employee's qualifying days for SSP will normally be Monday to Friday, or the actual days worked if these are less than five days. Where an employee works less than five days per week the department should notify the Salaries Section of the individual's working arrangements to ensure that accurate records are kept for SSP purposes.

Sickness during annual holiday

If an employee is taken ill whilst on annual leave, arrangements will apply under which, provided the employee satisfies the department by production of a self-certification form or doctor's certificate, he or she will be able to take the balance of his or her annual holiday (but excluding any allowance for sickness on days of public holiday) at a later date after he or she returns to work. This leave should normally be rearranged during the same holiday year, but, if this is not possible, the affected leave may be carried forward to the next year.  The normal reporting requirements for sickness still apply when an employee is taken ill whilst on annual leave.

PLEASE NOTE that the above are the only circumstances in which certification is needed and that, although the Administrator should ask, where appropriate, about illness on weekends and other rest days (for reasons see immediate notification of sickness), there should be no attempt to request certification in respect of them.

SSP and the University's own sick pay scheme

The University's own sick pay scheme provides that if an employee is absent from work through sickness or injury he or she will be entitled to payment at the rate of full salary, which will include any payment due under the SSP scheme, for such period as his or her department may determine. At the end of this period of full sickness pay, a department has discretion to pay at the rate of part salary for a further period but any such reduction would not normally affect payment of SSP so long as an employee's entitlement to such remains. If an employee is excluded from the SSP scheme, the University will deduct the amount of any short-term incapacity benefit payable by the Contributions Agency from any salary paid. No deductions shall be made from payments at half pay under the University's own sick pay arrangements, except that where the total amount of half-pay plus incapacity benefit or other allowances exceeds full pay, a deduction will be made of an amount equivalent to the excess.

In certain rare cases it is possible that payment of full or half pay under the University's own sick pay scheme will have ceased, but SSP will continue to be due; employees should be told if this is about to happen.

In applying discretion to pay at the rate of part salary for a further period, departments have been asked to note that the following guidelines for pay during sick leave were approved by the General Board and Council in Hilary Term 1990 for academic-related staff. In addition, these arrangements have been approved by the National Clerical Consortium agreement, for the old Clerical and Library staff grades.

Members of clerical and library staff should, therefore, receive not less than the entitlement under the National Agreement. However, departments continue to have the discretion to apply more generous provisions in individual cases. For academic-related staff and all other university support staff, including those employed on Whitley Council scales in clinical departments, the above scale of allowances provides guidance only as to the rates of salary payable in the event of absence due to illness, and departments retain the discretion to make payments of salary for lesser or additional periods.

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