Burnetts Bitesize Bulletin

Friday 13th November - Your Last "Lucky Day"

Deadline for Retrospective Furlough Claims

Remember, remember the 5th of November, when the Government published its Policy Paper following the shock announcement of an extension to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (aka the Furlough Scheme) until 31st March 2021. The Policy Paper covers the period from 1st November 2020 to 31st January 2021; further Guidance was published at 7pm on 10th November 2020 – further analysis of this Guidance will be part of this month’s Resource.

The extended Furlough Scheme will include the following key points:

• Employers can claim 80% of employees’ salaries, up to £2,500, taking the scheme back to the level it was at in August before greater employer contributions were required in September and October.
• The scheme will be reviewed in January 2021 to see if economic circumstances have improved enough to ask employers to contribute more, which means the 80% Government contribution may not last for the duration of the extension.
• Employers will still have to pay National Insurance and employer pension contributions.
• The Job Retention Bonus, due to be paid out for employees retained after furlough until the end of January, has been put on hold.

Point to Note: Under the extended Furlough Scheme there is no requirement for the employer to have previously claimed under the Furlough Scheme, nor do employees need to have been previously furloughed. The only requirement is that an employee was on the PAYE payroll on 30th October 2020.

Date for your diary: You will need to act quickly on this one. It is possible, under the extended Furlough Scheme, to furlough employees with effect from 1st November 2020, despite not getting an agreement in place before this. The deadline to get the retrospective Furlough Agreements in place is by the end of Friday 13th November 2020. Remember: The employees must have been genuinely furloughed during this time for the backdated agreement to be valid. Your agreement must be confirmed to your employees in writing and its terms must reflect the hours worked or not worked during the furlough period.

Government Policy

Check which employees you can put on furlough to use the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Claim for wage costs through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

For further advice on the extended furlough scheme and your specific employment law queries please contact Sharon Ridley on 01228 587413 or 07764375475 or sr@burnetts.co.uk.