Self-isolating workers should be given furlough payments to encourage compliance, report recommends

TUC blasts £96-a-week sick pay as 'gaping hole in government's Covid strategy’

The NHS Test and Trace app is used to tell people to self-isolate (REUTERS)

Workers asked to self-isolate after after testing positive for coronavirus or coming into contact with a carrier should be given furlough payments worth 80 per cent of their wages, rather than being forced to rely on sick pay, a new report has said.

The Resolution Foundation report came amid growing evidence that few workers have benefited from a promised one-off payment of £500 for self-isolators, with an investigation by The Independent finding that only a few hundred people have received the money in a string of major cities.

It estimated the cost of allowing self-isolating employees to claim furlough at just over £300m a month, and said further payments should be made to encourage the self-employed to comply.  

The TUC backed calls for more generous support for self-isolators, describing it as a “gaping hole in the government's Covid strategy”.

NHS Test and Trace chief Dido Harding recently acknowledged that financial hardship was deterring people from obeying orders to quarantine, telling a Commons committee: “All the evidence shows that people are not complying with isolation not because they don’t want to but because they find it very difficult. The need to keep earning and to be able to feed your family is a fundamental element of it.”

Today’s report, entitled Time Out, found that the current system needs to be replaced with a more effective regime of support for those told to stay at home for 10 days after testing positive or 14 if identified as a close contact.

Statutory sick pay (SSP) of just £96 a week represents the lowest level of state support in any advanced economy during the pandemic - less than a quarter of typical earnings, compared to a 60 per cent average in OECD countries - found the Resolution Foundation.

And 2 million employees earning less than £120 a week are not entitled to SSP at all, equivalent to one in four of all part-time workers and one in seven workers in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors worst-hit by Covid-19.

While the government “implicitly acknowledged” the shortcomings of SSP by introducing the £500 Test and Trace Support Payments for workers entitled to benefits, only one in eight workers is eligible and there is evidence that the money is reaching too few people, the report found.

In West Yorkshire - an area with one of the UK’s highest infection rates over recent months – just 1,783 support payments were made between 12 October and 25 November.

The report called for all self-isolating employees to be given furlough payments at 80 per cent of earnings, estimating the cost at £426m if 643,000 people used the scheme, up from around £112m for SSP payments.

Self-employed workers should be given pro-rata grants of up to £830, while those not entitled to the Treasury’s SEISS scheme for the self-employed should have Employment and Support Allowance payments uprated by £20 a week to £96 during self-isolation, it said.

Resolution Foundation researcher Maja Gustafsson said: “Getting people to self-isolate at home is one of the important tools we have in combatting Covid-19.

“But asking workers to do that often involves a major financial sacrifice, and the UK’s sick pay regime has been woefully inadequate in providing the necessary support. Many more Covid infections will have taken place as a result.

“Coronavirus vaccines will take many months to roll out, so more workers will need to self-isolate at home to contain the spread of the virus next year. Given the failure of the current sick pay regime, the government must turn now to the far more successful job support schemes to provide workers and firms with the financial support they need to do the right thing.

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “The lack of decent sick pay has been a gaping hole in the government's Covid strategy. 

“Asking workers to self-isolate on £96 a week is not viable – especially when many don’t have savings to fall back on.    

“This problem needs fixing urgently. Until people are given sick pay they can survive on they will be forced to choose between following the health advice and paying their bills.    

“Nobody should be plunged into financial hardship for doing the right thing. Sick pay should be raised to at least the rate of the real living wage and everyone should be entitled to it.  

“It’s not right that two million workers are excluded from it because they do not earn enough.”  

TUC polling published in September revealed that more than four in 10 workers would be plunged into financial hardship if forced to self-isolate for two weeks on SSP.     

A Treasury spokesperson said: “At the start of the pandemic we made statutory sick pay payable from day one and also extended it to those ill, self-isolating or shielding due to coronavirus.

“It is also the minimum amount an eligible employee is entitled to receive from their employer and over half of people receive more from their workplace through occupational sick pay. Those eligible also benefit from further support through measures such as the £500 Self-Isolation Support Payment Scheme and £20-a-week increase to Universal Credit.”