Statutory Sick Pay Act 1991
| Year | 1991 |
Statutory Sick Pay Act 1991
1991 CHAPTER 3
An Act to reduce the amount of statutory sick pay which employers are entitled to recover; to repeal section 9(1A) of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982; and for purposes connected therewith.
[12th February 1991]
Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Reduction in the amounts recoverable by employers whohave paid statutory sick pay.
(1) In section 9 of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982—
(a) in paragraph (a) (which requires regulations to make provision entitling an employer who has made a payment of statutory sick pay to recover the amount so paid by making deductions from his contributions payments) for the words from ‘a payment’ to ‘by making’ there shall be substituted the words ‘one or more payments of statutory sick pay in a prescribed period to recover an amount equal to the sum of—
(i) the aggregate of such of those payments as qualify for small employers' relief, and
(ii) an amount equal to 80 per cent. of the aggregate of such of those payments as do not so qualify,
by making’; and
(b) in paragraph (b) (which requires regulations to provide for payments to be made by the Secretary of State to employers who are unable to recover by such deductions the whole or any part of any payments of statutory sick pay which they have made) for the words ‘any payments of statutory sick pay which they have made’ there shall be substituted the words ‘the amounts which they are entitled to recover by virtue of paragraph (a) above.’
(2) Subsection (1A) of that section (which requires regulations to give an employer who has paid statutory sick pay a right to an amount determined by reference to certain secondary Class 1 contributions paid) shall cease to have effect.
(3) In subsection (3) of that section (provision that may be made by regulations) after paragraph (b) there shall be added the words ‘and
(c) provide for the rounding up or down of any fraction of a penny which would otherwise result from calculating the amount which an employer is entitled to recover for any period by virtue of subsection (1)(a) above.’
(4) In consequence of subsection (1) above, in section 1(4A) of the Social Security Act 1975 (which provides for payments to be made out of money provided by Parliament into the National Insurance Fund in each financial year of an amount equal to the estimated aggregate of all statutory sick pay and statutory maternity pay paid by employers and others in that year) for the words ‘paid by employers and others in that year’ there shall be substituted the words ‘recovered by employers and others in that year’.
(5) In section 22 of the Social Security Act 1989 (recovery of sums equivalent to benefit from compensation payments) in the definition of ‘benefit’ in subsection (3), the words ‘subject to regulations under subsection (3A) below’ shall be inserted after the word ‘and’, and after that subsection there shall be inserted—
(3A) If statutory sick pay is prescribed as a relevant benefit, the amount of that benefit for the purposes of this section shall be a reduced amount determined in accordance with regulations by reference to the percentage from time to time specified in section 9(1)(a) of the 1982 Act (percentage of statutory sick pay recoverable by employers by deduction from contributions).’
2 Small employers' relief.
(1) In section 9 of the Social Security and Housing Benefits Act 1982 , before subsection (2) (meaning of ‘contributions payments’) there shall be inserted—
...(1B) For the purposes of this section, a payment of statutory sick pay which an employer is liable to make to an employee for any day which forms part of a period of incapacity for work qualifies for small employers' relief if—
(a) on that day the employer is a small employer who has been liable to pay statutory sick pay in respect of that employee for earlier days forming part of that period of incapacity for work; and
(b) the aggregate amount of those payments exceeds the entitlement threshold, that is to say, an amount equal to W X R, where—
W is a prescribed number of weeks; and
R is the appropriate weekly rate set out in section 7 above;
and regulations may make provision for calculating the entitlement threshold in any case where the employee's entitlement to statutory sick pay is calculated by reference to different weekly rates in the same period of incapacity for work.
(1C) If the Secretary of State by order so provides for any tax year, the following subsections shall have effect for that tax year in substitution for subsection (1B) above—
(1BB) For the purposes of this section, a payment of statutory sick pay which an employer is liable to make to an employee for any day in a tax year qualifies for small employers' relief if—
(a) on that day the employer is a small employer who has been liable to make payments of statutory sick pay for earlier days in that tax year in respect of any employees of his; and
(b) the aggregate of any such payments for those earlier days exceeds a prescribed sum.
(1BC) In any case where—
(a) an employer is liable to make two or more payments of statutory sick pay for the same day in a tax year, and
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