Making Work Pay: Strengthening Statutory Sick Pay
This response is submitted by the Local Government Association (LGA) on behalf of local authorities, fire authorities and maintained schools. The LGA is a cross-party organisation that is the national voice of local government. We work with councils and central government to support, promote and improve local government. The LGA covers every part of England and Wales and includes county and district councils, metropolitan and unitary councils, London boroughs, Welsh unitary councils (via the Welsh LGA), as well as fire and national park authorities. The Workforce Team of the LGA offers advice on employment issues and represents local government employer interests to central government, government agencies, trade unions and other interested parties.
The LGA manages sectoral collective bargaining in local government and national collective bargaining arrangements for fire, education and related sectors in total covering around two million employees. Elected councillors (and other employer organisations where appropriate) and nationally recognised trade unions work together in a positive way to reach collective agreements on key employment issues such as pay, including sick pay, and other terms and conditions.
General comments
There are a variety of views across the sector on what the level of SSP should be for lower paid workers. Therefore, we have not answered the specific questions in the consultation and instead we have encouraged local authorities to respond direct.
However, we do have the following comments about the removal of the waiting period for SSP and its extension to lower paid workers, which we ask you to consider.
While the SSP changes may not have a significant impact on the majority of the local authority directly employed workforce, for the reasons set out below, we do have substantial concerns about the impact it could have on the costs of commissioned services, particularly in terms of the extension of SSP to lower paid workers. The reason for this is that in commissioned services, such as social care, the majority of the workers will be lower paid and so will not currently be entitled to SSP, nor will they normally receive any occupational sick pay. Therefore, extending SSP to those workers could well lead to an increase in the costs of all commissioned services, which could be significant, especially considering the current funding and spending challenges that councils face. So while we recognise the government’s intentions with these proposals, it is important that any increase in local authorities’ costs arising from the SSP changes is fully funded, in order to prevent scarce funds being transferred from key local government services causing disruption to the public and increased pressure on an already stretched workforce.
That being said, the changes to SSP entitlements for lower paid workers are not expected to have a substantial impact on directly employed lower-paid workers in local authorities as most will already be entitled to contractual sick pay at full pay for periods ranging from one month up to six months. Further, SSP being payable from the first day of sickness absence is unlikely to have much impact, as most local authority employees are already entitled to contractual sick pay from the first day of absence.
Local Government Association
[email protected]
2 December 2024