By Suzanne Clarkson 12 November 2020.

Following the publication last year (July 2019) of consultation paper Health is everyone's business: proposals to reduce ill-health related job loss, COVER has learnt that the government is expected to publish a Green Paper - possible courses of action in terms of policy and legislation - before the end of this year.

Industry body GRiD set up the Workplace Public Policy Committee (WPPC) following the publication of this consultation, with a view to helping ensure the group risk industry had a more coordinated approach to public policy issues in order to be more effective in engagement with government.

Members of the industry felt that the role played by group income protection (GIP) in helping to manage sickness absence and employee return-to-work support was not recognised as part of the consultation, which instead focused heavily on occupational health and statutory sick pay (SSP) reform.

Nick Homer, head of market management, corporate risk, at Zurich, and a member of the WPPC and the GRiD steering committee, said: "The GRiD Workplace Public Policy Committee has had some engagement with DWP and we do still currently expect the response to the ‘Health is everyone's business' consultation to be published this year."

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