Coronavirus Bill – emergency volunteering leave and SSP changes

We explain the new provisions and next steps for employers below. The Bill is expected to be passed by Parliament next week, but the emergency volunteering leave and SSP changes both require further regulations to bring them into effect.

Emergency volunteering leave

To help support essential health and social care services, all workers will be able to take emergency volunteering leave. Leave can be taken in blocks of 2, 3 or 4 consecutive weeks in any period of 16 weeks.

To take emergency volunteering leave, the worker needs to give their employer 3 working days’ notice and produce a certificate from an appropriate authority certifying that:

• they have been approved as an emergency volunteer, and
• they will be acting as an emergency volunteer from the date, and for the period, specified in the certificate.

Employers with a headcount of less than 10 will not be required to grant leave, but all other employers will need to do so. There is no provision for employers to be able to refuse leave, for example because of operational need.

It’s not currently clear who will be certified as an emergency volunteer.

Emergency volunteers will be entitled to a travel and subsistence allowance from the government. They will also be entitled to compensation for loss of earnings, but only where they have lost earnings by volunteering. The Bill provides that the government must compensate volunteers but includes a power to impose limits on the amount a person is entitled to claim, so it is not clear if all workers will get their normal pay.

Whilst on leave, volunteers will be in a similar position to employees on family leave, in that their contract of employment will continue as normal apart from terms about remuneration, and they will have the right to return to the same job, with their seniority rights preserved and on no less favourable terms and conditions.

Employees taking emergency volunteering leave will have the right not to be subjected to a detriment or dismissed for doing so.

Statutory sick pay changes

Ordinarily, Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is not payable for the first three days of sickness absence. The Bill allows for the temporary suspension of these “waiting days”. The Bill also provides the ability for employers to reclaim SSP payments. The government had already announced in the 2020 budget that it would disapply waiting days and refund small and medium sized employers for up to two weeks of SSP per employee who is absent for reasons relating to Coronavirus.

The Bill also allows the latest public health guidance to be used when determining whether an individual should be entitled to SSP.

Next steps for employers

We think employers should wait for further details of the compensation scheme for volunteers before deciding on their policy stance.

If volunteers will be able to claim full loss of earnings from the government then there is little to be gained by offering to maintain their normal pay during volunteering periods, because this would simply mean that the volunteer suffers no loss of earnings and would be unable to make a claim.

If, however, the payments are limited, employers will need to decide if they will offer top-ups.

The alignment of the SSP rules with government guidance will come as welcome news for employers after all the confusion in recent weeks over who is entitled to SSP and in what circumstances. Of course, employers will need to consider whether to apply the same rules to company sick pay. Our recent survey indicates that employers are currently maintaining or even improving on company sick pay arrangements as part of their efforts to support staff in these unprecedented times.

We will continue to monitor developments but for more guidance and support please visit our dedicated Coronavirus hub.