So the calculation follows your pay down as well as up, and it does that on its own. What it does not do is end the arrestment.

Here is what the Act says, what it does not say about other statutory family pay, and how the numbers behave while you are off. What counts as net earnings covers the figure the tables read.

Statutory sick pay is named in its own paragraph of the definition, at section 73(2)(d), and it is not in the exclusion list. It can be reached by an earnings arrestment.

Where the Act says so

Section 73(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 sets out four categories of earnings, and statutory sick pay is the fourth of them, at paragraph (d).

No paragraph of that subsection carries an amendment marker. The definition stands as it was enacted in 1987.

Why the Act had to name it separately

Statutory sick pay is payable under statute rather than under your contract of employment. It is not wages or salary, and it is not an emolument payable under a contract of service.

So paragraphs (a) and (b) would not have caught it. Paragraph (d) is doing real work, which is worth holding onto for the next section.

Your employer still has to operate the arrestment

The employer paying you sick pay is paying a sum the Act defines as earnings, and section 47(1) obliges them to deduct on every pay day and pay the money over. How much they can take from your wages sets out the bands they apply.

Refusing to operate an arrestment makes an employer liable for the sums they should have deducted. It is not a discretion.

Nothing either way. The words do not appear in section 73 at all, neither in the list of what counts as earnings nor in the list of what is taken back out of it.

What is verified, and what is not

The Act expressly lists statutory sick pay as earnings. It does not mention statutory maternity, paternity, adoption or shared parental pay either way, so ask a money adviser to check the position on your own pay before relying on either answer.

That is the honest position and it is where the sources stop. No official guidance we have been able to trace resolves it in either direction.

What the Act names, what it reaches, and what it leaves open

The middle column is the useful one. It separates what the Act says in terms from what it reaches by reading, and from what it does not address.

What to do if this is your position

Ask a money adviser to check it against your own pay before relying on either answer, and ask payroll in writing which figure they applied the table to. Free advice in Scotland sets out who does what, and none of them charges.

By applying the statutory table for your pay frequency to your net earnings for that period. If the figure lands in the nil band, nothing is deducted for that period.

There is no separate sick pay calculation

Your employer is not instructed to take a set sum. Section 47(1) requires them to deduct a sum calculated under the Act from your net earnings on every pay day, so the figure comes from the table rather than from a fixed instruction.

The tables do not distinguish a busy month from a month spent in bed. They read one number, which is your net earnings for the period.

The same arrestment across three pay periods

The nil bands are net earnings of £750.00 a month, £172.61 a week or £24.66 a day, in force since 6 April 2025 under the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. The protected earnings limits carry each one with its date.

Where a top-up changes things

Where your contract provides sick pay on top of the statutory minimum, that payment forms part of the same period’s net earnings. The total may stay well above the nil band.

The question is never what the payment is called. It is what your net earnings for the period come to.

Because your net earnings for the period are still above the protected threshold. A contractual top-up, holiday pay in the same period, or part of the period worked will all feed into the same figure.

What to check, in order

A period you worked part of is worth checking first. Why an arrestment can take more than you expected works through each cause with the figure attached.

If you think it has been calculated wrongly

Ask payroll in writing for the net earnings figure used and the band applied. If that does not settle it, section 50(3) of the 1987 Act allows an application to determine a dispute about how the arrestment is operating, and the Scottish courts publish the rules.

Section 50(1) covers a declarator that the arrestment is invalid or has ceased to have effect. Neither has a time limit, and neither considers what you can afford.

The £1.00 charge is not part of the arrestment

Your employer may take £1.00 per deduction as an administration charge, from your pay on top of the arrested amount. It does not reduce what the creditor receives or what you owe.

It picks up again on its own as soon as your net earnings rise back above the protected threshold. A nil deduction does not cancel it and your employer does not need fresh paperwork to resume.

A nil period is not the end of anything

Under section 47(2) an arrestment takes effect when the schedule is served on the employer and runs until the debt is paid or extinguished, the employment ends, or it is recalled or abandoned.

So months of nil deductions change nothing about the arrestment’s status. How long a wage arrestment lasts and what happens below the threshold both cover the point.

Plan for the first full period back

Your first normal payslip after a spell off can carry a noticeably larger deduction than you have been used to. If you have been budgeting around nil periods, that is the one that bites.

Work the figure out in advance from the band your net earnings will fall into. What counts as net earnings sets out what to take off first.

If your hours come back gradually

A phased return produces partial pay for a while, and the deduction tracks it upwards step by step. Nobody has to be notified for that to happen.

A nil period does not shorten the arrestment either, because nothing is paid towards the balance in it. Whether an arrestment can be stopped once it has started covers what actually brings one to an end.

Where an employer has deducted more than the table allows, raise it with payroll straight away and ask for the calculation. Money already taken is credited against the debt and is not usually refunded, so check the position with the creditor.

An over-deduction is a different thing from an unaffordable one

A payroll error is a question about the arithmetic, and it has a route. A deduction you cannot manage is not an error at all, and it has a different route.

That distinction decides which door you knock on. Whether an arrestment can take more than half your wages sets out what the tables can and cannot produce.

Money taken before a debt solution starts

If you go on to enter a Debt Payment Programme, a protected trust deed or sequestration, money already taken is credited against the debt and is not usually refunded. Check the position with the creditor.

Ask for an up to date balance showing everything paid so far, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy publishes guidance on each statutory solution.

Look at what a free money adviser can put in place rather than at ways of arguing the figure down. A sheriff cannot reduce a Schedule 2 deduction because you cannot afford it, so there is no hardship application to make against one.

Other routes to raise with an adviser

• An approved Debt Payment Programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme, which stops an existing earnings arrestment and freezes interest, fees and charges.
• A statutory moratorium, giving six months of protection from diligence, one per rolling 12 months.
• A time to pay order, where the debt outstanding is £25,000 or less excluding interest. If the sheriff grants one, the sheriff must recall any existing earnings arrestment, though it is not settled whether an earnings arrestment on its own opens the door to an application, so ask a money adviser or the sheriff clerk whether one is competent on your facts.
• Sequestration, the Minimal Asset Process or a protected trust deed, each of which ends an existing arrestment by statute.

Our guides to the Debt Arrangement Scheme and the statutory moratorium set out what each one does to an arrestment already running.

Check your income before anything formal

Make sure you are getting everything you are entitled to first. A benefits check, Council Tax Reduction and, in an emergency, a Crisis Grant from the Scottish Welfare Fund can all change the picture while you are off work.

The Scottish Welfare Fund is run by all 32 councils, and general guidance on debt and diligence sits on mygov.scot.

Where the pay is a pension rather than a wage

If you are moving from sick pay onto an occupational pension, that is a different question with its own answer. Whether an arrestment can reach your pension covers it.