Civil Service: Phased Return - how can I make it work?

[Usernamechanged24]

I have been a civil servant for over 20 years. Am returning to work after my first ever absence (unfortunately a very long one) . OH have advised, by way of a reasonable adjustment for my disability, that i should have a phased return over 6-8 weeks. They have suggested that i build my hours up over this period until i am full time.

HR initially welcomed this and said that as it was a reasonable adjustment they would pay my full wage (for 6-8 weeks). Today I have been told they have changed their minds and I will only be paid for the hours I work.

I understand that this probably seems reasonable : you should be paid for what you work. But I just don’t know how I am going to make it work/ survive. The amount I will earn will be very low , even if I am allowed to top it up with a reduced benefit rate , and won’t be sufficient for me to pay travel costs to and from work plus housing and food: let alone other bills.

I asked if I could return on full time hours but they said no because OH have advised I won’t be able/ I need to phase back in. What am I going to do?

I have been on nil pay for a year. I have used up all my savings and have borrowed to the max. I currently live from benefit payment to benefit payment , have maxed out credit cards and overdraft. I feel so fed up : just like giving up.

WWYD? Has anyone been in a similar position? If so how did you make it work. Thank you.

I think (but am not sure) that you can still receive universal credit but reduced by the amount you'd earn while doing the phased return, so you might not be better off than you are now for the first 6 weeks, you shouldn't be worse off?

I get that you'll have travel costs, would work agree to let you work mainly from home the first few weeks at least? Can you use annual leave (you must have accrued some?) as part of the phasing in so you get paid some of the days you don't work? Would work agree to a salary advance to cover some of the travel costs? Are you in a union and can they help at all? The Civil Service Charity might be able to give you a grant if they haven't already?

Do you have any annual leave still owing you can use?
Can you try and increase your hours quite quickly over the first 3 weeks so you're up to an amount of hours that will give you a decent level of pay eg. 25 hours. Then just increase very gradually over next few weeks.

Unfortunately you're going to have to go through that financial "pain" bit to get back to work

Are you in a union?

I got paid for full return when l had phased return ( teaching)

Thank you for your replies. I am in a union and have emailed them for advice..

I have been on nil pay for a year - living on universal credit..That hasn’t been easy. I am not sure what more ‘financial pain’ I can go through. What more can I stop? With all the expense of work (travel costs etc) I will be even worse off .

Has anyone else been through this and ,if so, how did you get through it? I’m scared. After paying my rent I am left with £84 a week to pay all my bills (electricity , water, credit cards, overdraft), food etc) . My travel costs to work each week are more than that alone. Should I just not pay my bills for 6-8 weeks whilst my hours are increased?But then I will incur charges and I just don’t know how I will ever catch up?

I asked about doing more hours but they want to stick to what OH have proposed to ‘keep the pressure off’ /make it workable.,it’s just crazy.. They are also not keen on WFH : but I think I may just have to press on this. I don’t know how people make it work.

I will also ask about annual leave as I haven’t used any whilst off sick so don’t know how that would work. Thank you.

If you were on nil pay, I assume you have used up your paid sick leave entitlement? I think that might be the issue. I've returned to work on a phased return on full pay before but that was because I hadn't hit the maximum limit for fully paid sick leave.

It’s a shame you are on nil pay for sick.

I am retired CS HR. What they should do is to ask you to complete a flexi sheet or something similar to record the hours you work. They will then treat the remaining hours as sick absence. Each time you reach a standard day (7 hours 24) of accrued sick they then put it into the system as a sick day. I assume you are paid 365 so this should mean you lose 1/29 th for each sick day in Feb and 1/31st for each sick day in March.

Please do not damage your health and recovery by trying to do too much. I suspect you are starting on 3 or 4 hours a day maximum then increasing by an hour every week or fortnight.

Example
Week 1: 3 hours x 5 days = 15 hours paid and 22 hours sick = 2 days sick 7.2 hours sick cfwd
Week 2: 4 hours x 5 days = 20 hours paid and 17 hours sick (+7.2) = 3 days sick 2 hours sick cfwd
Week 3: 4 hours x 5 days = 20 hours paid and 17 hours sick (+2) = 2 days sick 4.2 hours sick cfwd
week 4: 5 hours x 5 days = 25 hours worked and 12 hours sick (4.2) =. 2 days sick 1.4 hours cfwd.

So in Feb you are likely to lose 9/29ths of your monthly salary. This will be much less in March as you increase your hours.

If you have been claiming UC you should continue to claim this but be aware there is a lag in sick pay coming out of your salary.

If they won't let you go back full time, then you should be able to get your pension on sick grounds - an ill health pension.

Are you in Alpha now with past Classic? After 20+ years, it'll be a good amount.

But yes, get your union involved. They'll know if your Dept has paid for full return in other cases.

That’s actually helpful as it is definitely standard practice in the Depts I worked in to allow you to use annual leave to phase a return to work.

As you can see from my example above instead of 9 days sick in Feb you could take 9 days annual leave. What you need to find is the pay policy expert/ payroll manager as they are the ones who know how to do this.m

@AprilRoche that is jumping a head a bit. Phased returns in the CS are very common as it makes sense to allow employees to transition from sick to full time work. We are only talking about 8 weeks before the op is back full time.

Definitely get them to advise on whether you can used accrued annual leave to off set. This feels quite tough - and not being universally applied across departments so I would speak to your union ASAP.

Don't risk your health for this though. It isn't worth it.

Do you have an employee assistance programme? I think we have something to help people in difficulty. Definitely worth looking at using leave to top up your working week.

As you’re getting uc you should ask them for help with travel costs for when you return to work.

Hope it all goes well on your return.

That’s a good shout. The union will have a hardship fund and there is also the civil service charity. https://www.cfcs.org.uk/

Thank you for your replies. Sorry for not responding sooner: went to bed with a migraine (my BP is through the roof).

OH recommended starting on 12 hours a week so pay will be significantly less that I used to get . Hopefully Universal Credit will top it up but I will have to pay out more by way of travel costs etc. I know it is only temporary but I have been off for so long and on nil pay I simply don’t have any wriggle room. I really don’t want to start incurring charges for not paying bills etc but maybe that’s what has to happen?

I will ask about annual leave accrued : do you think I may have built up some annual leave when I was off sick? If so it feels a bit greedy/ not right when I have been off sick for so long but otherwise I just don’t know how I will manage? I would prefer not to use up all of this forthcoming years allowance so I can have time off in the coming year as it may become difficult to manage health issues without it? Sorry I haven’t been off sick before so not sure how it works: I also can’t access work IT until I return so don’t know the policies. I will ask.

I tried the Civil Service Charity: they were closed today and tomorrow but will try again on Monday. I called the Employer Assistance Programme (Care First) helpline but they said they no longer have a contract with Govt so can’t help.

I don’t know if you saw this but something else to try.

So someone should have advised you that you could use your annual leave concurrently with your sick leave (called a stringer payment I believe) to reduce the amount of time you were on nil pay. Your time not working on your phased return will count as sick leave so you can use your al in parallel to claim the stringer payment

Could you get an advance of salary to at least spread the financial impact out a bit? I know civil service normally will do this for new starters if it's needed and you're in a very similar position.

They've just changed the provider of employee assistance - ask HR who it is now.

OP have HR given a reason why they have back peddled on the previously agreed reasonable adjustment? Hope your union rep can assist you 💖

@Usernamechanged24 contact your HR and ask how much annual leave you have accrued. Given that you are on no pay I am assuming you had 6m full pay and 6m half pay so you should have at least 12 months including BH so c38+ days. It’s not greedy it’s your legal entitlement.

If you are starting on 12 hours a week that is 4 x 3 hour days my suggestion is to propose taking a full days annual leave on Wednesday work 3 hours the other 4 days and take 1/2 days annual leave on the 4 days you work. Also ask to work at least 2 days at home.

Do the same the second week and then you only accrue 4.8 hours sick over the fortnight.

The relevant judgement is Stringer vs HMRC.

HTH

Thank you so much for your responses. You won’t believe how helpful they have been. I am extremely grateful. I will look into / make all the points made.

HR haven’t said why they have changed their position but I suppose they can so I just have to try and make the best of the situation.

I received five months half pay and a year on nil pay. If I was working think I would be entitled to 30 days annual leave (over 20 years service- can’t access work IT so not sure on the latest policy but as pp suggested will ask HR to confirm what I am entitled to). If that is correct then can see if Stringer applies and ask them to structure the working hours as Propertlover proposed above and hopefully the take home pay during the phased return will be much better. Fingers crossed.

Thank you all so much for your help and guidance. Hopefully I can make it work and go back to being a useful person! Thank you.

It’s 30 days plus BH and QB/KB.

It's really poor of your manager and HR not to mention you are owed Annual leave.

Have you met with your manager yet to plan exactly what your phased return will look like in terms of hours and job tasks each week? This would usually be the point when it can be discussed about using annual leave as part of the phased return.