Statutory Sick Pay on sponsors payslip...problem?

Hi everyone.
Ive just been going through my husband's payslips because of one issue (payroll put incorrect paid in date) and found another that may be a huge problem...we dont know. Im hoping someone will have some insight.
My husband was off sick for a month this year. This should not have been an issue as he is supposed ro get six weeks full sick pay and six weeks half sick pay. However, we just realised that instead of the four weeks being paid in full, two pay slips show that he received statutory sick pay. Only £18 on one, but £285 on another....which puts his company pay below the required £1550 for the month. The total pay is the normal amount above 1550 that he gets every month, so it is still above the MIR, but 285 of it is SSP. Which is technically government benefit, isnt it?

Basically, this should NOT have happened and is a result of the horrible CEO and operations manager at the time. The company has a new CEO and my husbnd is going to talk to him about it tomorrow as its possibly a breach of his contract. We are also concerned it may mean the company committed fraud.

Most importantly, we are now very worried that this will put our ILR application at risk in January. If anyone has any advice, we would greatly appreciate it.

Statutory sick pay is allowed for the USC. It's not a means tested benefit.

Which financial category are you applying in for ILR?

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You have no idea what a relief that is to hear. Thank you.
Category A. Husband has been at the same job since April 2018. His hours were exanded at the beginning of 2019, so he has been at the same payrate since Feb 2019.

We are still gonna bring it up to the new CEO. We were already going to bring up the other payslip issue. Do you happen to know how bad it is that there are several months where the direct debit date for his pay does not match the paid in date on his payslip? Off by three days even one time. The paid amounts match, but the company uses a cheapo external payroll so they were just being lazy.

We feel so bad for the new CEO. He is a nice guy, but has been left such a mess by the previous boss.

In the employer letter just have them confirm the payslip amounts and pay dates. It happens often!

If he is salaried then at worst you use category B for 12 months to show he earned the required income, but category A only requires 6 months. I don't know if that month of sick pay would fall in that time? Hopefully one of the experts can stop by because I don't know how they calculate with sick pay in there.

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In the employer letter just have them confirm the payslip amounts and pay dates. It happens often!

Not quite sure what you mean....should the employer letter verify that the pay went in on the date that it did? Or that his normal paydate should be the 25th and the payroll company made a mistake by not adjusting the payslip when it was paid on a different date due to bank holiday or whatever the reasons were?

If he is salaried then at worst you use category B for 12 months to show he earned the required income, but category A only requires 6 months. I don't know if that month of sick pay would fall in that time? Hopefully one of the experts can stop by because I don't know how they calculate with sick pay in there.

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It does fall in it...right at the beginning. I was palnning on including an extra two payslips and bank statements before that time just for good measure...so it would total 8.

If we have to do Category B, then we are in big trouble. Twelve months means we have to account for pay back to January....which was his last paycheck on his old salary....which was 3K  a year (or 260 a month)below the MIR.
I have always worked as well, but only contract jobs and a 0 hour job I have had since I moved here. So my income is variable. I have made more than the 260 every month since January this year. I just dont know what to do now.

Please, does anyone else have any advice?

Not quite sure what you mean....should the employer letter verify that the pay went in on the date that it did? Or that his normal paydate should be the 25th and the payroll company made a mistake by not adjusting the payslip when it was paid on a different date due to bank holiday or whatever the reasons were?
 It does fall in it...right at the beginning. I was palnning on including an extra two payslips and bank statements before that time just for good measure...so it would total 8.

If we have to do Category B, then we are in big trouble. Twelve months means we have to account for pay back to January....which was his last paycheck on his old salary....which was 3K  a year (or 260 a month)below the MIR.
I have always worked as well, but only contract jobs and a 0 hour job I have had since I moved here. So my income is variable. I have made more than the 260 every month since January this year. I just dont know what to do now.

Please, does anyone else have any advice?

Page 35 of the detailed guidance covers sick leave. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/636618/Appendix_FM_1_7_Financial_Requirement_Final.pdf

Based on that you will need to provide an extra 4 weeks of payslips.

For the letter, I would have them detail the payslip amount, date, and date of deposit. It genuinely happens often so as long as the employer clarifies it was due to payroll timing there will be no trouble.

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I think I found the bit I need on pages 38/39, but I dont see where it says I have to submit an extra 4 weeks. I am happy to do so, but where exactly did you find it?
I did see another part...where it says we can submit a P60 as proof. i was hoping to avoid this as the last P60 would only reflect the lower pay before he met the MIR on his own. Also, the crappy payroll company neve even gave him a P60 this year. We realised that recently too.  (Its been a shitty chaotic year.)

But those guidance docs are sooo confusing to read. Also, something is seriously wrong with these payslips because the math doesnt add up at all. 285 is three weeks of ssp...he was only off 3 weeks that month. How could he have gotten over a grand in company sick pay AND three weeks of ssp? God, that CEO was either completely incompetent or a straight up crook.

I hope that is clear enough. It is example B on page 35. Section 5.5.23

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Ahhh, ok. Thanks. Sadly, neither apply to our situation exactly. He is salaried and was making his full pay the whole time. I suppose the best we can do is give a couple extra months evidence, along with everything they want about the sick pay in the employer letter, and his contract. We really wanted to avoid giving the P60.

Right now we are more worried about how sketchy the payslips are.  He was off three weeks in August. They paid him company sick pay AND 285 SSP. 285 in ssp IS three weeks. We are really scared they are gonna find this suspicious and take it out on us.

Sighhh....I just really hope that they can get this sorted out in a few weeks. We have a month and a half to sort this out.

All that above example means is that you just have to provide extra payslips to make up for the number of weeks or months he was paid SSP.

Basically, the sick pay weeks don’t count towards the financial requirement so they will ignore that payslip... which means you need to provide an extra payslip to cover a full 6 months.

For example:

You apply in early December. Six months of payslips is
May
June
July
Aug
Sept
Oct
Nov

But say he received SSP for all of June... that month doesn’t count.

Therefore you need to instead provide:
April
May
(June)
July
August
Sep
Oct
Nov

Because June won’t be included in the 6-month calculation.

But say he was off sick for 3 months July, Aug, Sep, you would provide an extra 3 months of payslips:
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
June
(July)
(Aug)
(Sep)
Oct
Nov


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Hi Ksand24....was hoping you might have a look at my plight as well. Thanks so much for your advice.
My husband has SSP on his July and August payslips (even though this is wrong and he should have only received company sick pay and not SSP as per his contract.) As we are applying in January, July would have been the last month we needed. I was already goiing to include June but now I will include May as well....maybe April too for good measure.

We are hoping there is a good explanation for why this happened and that it can be fixed quickly. Having both the equivelant of three weeks company sick pay and three weeks SSP on the same 1 month payslip when he was only off a total of four weeks (only three in that month, one the month before...also, only four and a bit weeks to any month anyway), just seems super dodgey. I am really at a loss as to how we are meant to address this in the employer letter. We thankfully have a friend who works in finance and may be able to give us some advice, but if you have any thoughts I would greatly appreciate it. Im sure the new CEO would be willing to say it was a mistake caused by the previous CEO.....the man was undergoing pre-leukemia treatments, on a lot of meds but refused to not work. He caused a ton of problems in that time that the new guy is cleaning up.

Well....looks like this will be another crunch time issue to sort. The payrol company says this is "normal" but my friend says that is wrong. SSP should only be used if there is no company sick pay. She said payroll companies often get sick pay wrong and has advised us to call HMRC for advice as what to do to fix it. She has advised that we pursue getting it fixed because it is so glaring on the payslip that it will probably raise flags on the application. It is the companys mistake, not ours, but if we do nothing then we may look complacent. She says its better to show that we are trying to get it fixed to show that we are doing our best to be honest and not take money or benefits from gov/tax payer. I explained that SSP is exempt from that, which she says is good, but its still better to tackle it head on to show we are making the effort. Because if they spot it, and we havent said anything, it will be an issue. This is similar to advice I have gotten from this forum in the past, so I want to follow it. I just have no idea how to write this up and have the CEO write this up to put us in the best light. Would anyone happen to have any thoughts?

Hiiii.
I know this is a bit old of a topic, but unfortunately I am still dealing with it.

We have asked HMRC and National Insurance, and apparently using SSP to top up company sick pay IS a thing. Just not all companies do it. So I figured if we just had it quickly addressed, it would be all fine.

So we asked the external company who does the payroll for my husbands job to address it in the same letter where they discussed the paydate discrepancies. But this guy never gets it right. We have asked him three times to specify "gross" when talking income amounts and to specify the months where sick pay occurred. And he never does it and now he is saying "the home office should know about the SSP issue and should see which months it by looking at the payslips" and is refusing to change the letter any more. Grrrrr.

Can I just have the company's CEO address it in the employer letter? Cause right now, I think we would have to go down to the payroll company's office in person and demand what we need in order to get it. Although I have a feeling we will have to do that for December's payslip now cause this guy is such a jerk....

Hmmm...I swear someone had responded to my last update on this but its gone now. I was hoping to double check that. Anyway, just wanted to update what we are deciding to do. CEO is just gonna do the regular employment letter and the office manager had pity on us about the jerk in the payroll company and offered to write a letter explaining both the date discrepancies and giving the info we need about the sick pay (meaning dates mostly). We have decided not to really discuss the SSP issue now we have learned more about it (although the letter will say "per the contract" , which we found a bit that actually addresses the SSP) so as not to bring attention to it. The office manager handles all leave requests and approves all time sheets, so we are hoping this will be acceptable. (As well as the additional two pay slips and bank statements.)

Sounds good to me.