The company my wife works for are an absolute shambles. She was told that if any staff member has to self isolate (i.e if they've been pinged by the NHS Covid app and instructed to self isolate) then they'll only be paid SSP for the time they're at home, as the company doesn't have a working from home policy. Even though most members of staff could very easily work from home if the company actually got themselves together and got the systems in place to let people work from home.
However, just to complicate matters, if an employee has been told to self isolate and is seen as a 'crucial employee' then they may be paid their full salary whilst they're at home, at the directors discretion. If a staff member is told to self isolate, then can the company even pick and choose who gets full pay and who gets SSP?! It sounds very dodgy to me.
And what happens if an employee is told to self isolate but is also told they'll only get SSP whilst they're away from work, but cant afford to be on SSP. Ain't they almost blackmailing staff to attend work even though they should be self isolating.