While the Spring Statement was expected to be low-key, industry experts highlight ongoing challenges around financial resilience, support for those out of work due to ill-health, and the implications for protection policies across the workforce.
Following the Spring Statement, Katharine Moxham, spokesperson for GRiD comments:
“Although we were expecting a quiet fiscal event today, policies that encourage people back into the workplace should have been on the agenda. There’s no doubt that the sheer volume of those who are economically inactive due to ill-health continues to heap financial burden on the UK, and today’s budget failed to address that. What a missed opportunity for the Government to address economic inactivity, promote better workforce health and wellbeing and support the ambitions of its own Keep Britain Working Review.
Additionally, the continued failure to address the current double taxation on group income protection plans provided via salary sacrifice could result in fewer employees on long-term sick leave getting the support they need to get back to work and prosper.”
