Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is set to change for the 2026-27 tax year due to the Employment Rights Bill. But what is SSP, and what will the changes mean for employers and employees.
SSP is a payment made by an employer when employees who earn at least £125 a week are too sick to work. As of the 2025-26 tax year, this payment is £118.75 per week. The Bill aims to make several changes to help strengthen worker protections as well as making SSP more accessible.
The two biggest changes are that employees will now be eligible to receive SSP from the first day they are unable to work, rather than from the fourth day. The Lower Earnings Limit (LEL), that prevented employees who earnt less than £125 a week, will also be removed. Currently, only 25% of all employees receive SSP during a period of sickness absences. A government estimate claims that this will lift 1.3 million more people in part-time or lower-paid roles into SSP coverage. The cost to employers of removing the LEL and the waiting days is expected to be around £15 per employee, but the government believe businesses will stand to benefit from increased staff productivity.
Two main points for employers to note are that a single or two-day absence can now trigger an SSP, and that more employees are likely to qualify for it. This means that it is more important than ever to have a fair and accurate accounting of absences, clock-in times, and hours worked. Employees deserve to have their health prioritised without damaging their financial stability, while businesses deserve efficiency.
Tensor systems can help you manage these administrative tasks and provide reliable data for all your workforce needs. The system can easily handle varied shift salaries and patterns, while also able to account for overtime or lieu pay schemes. Working patterns, rosters, shifts, and labour cost analysis can all be managed, with built-in absenteeism and lateness reporting built in.
This also integrates with our other systems. Our access control solutions allow you to tie access permissions with your shift patterns so staff cannot enter too far before or after their expected shifts. This also provides a helpful audit trail in case of an emergency. Our Self-Service Module (SSM) give your staff the tools required to manage their own absences or shift swaps, and our HR software can provide real-time data and analytics about staffing, benefits, and employee development.
While a Tensor system alone does not make you compliant with the new SSP, it does give you enhanced data quality to use when the Employment Rights Bill is implemented in April. To reduce the incoming SSP-related admin and payroll costs, before the April implementation, you should start by reviewing your processes or speak with us about how we can help!