Latest government update to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – 29th May 2020

Transcript:

Hello folks just a quick update regarding the coronavirus job retention scheme. The update is from the 29th of May 2020.

The main highlights now are that the scheme is actually coming to a close. So it’s closing to new entrants. The scheme will close completely to new entrants from the 30th of June.

Although you can bring staff back and furlough them again. From the 1st of July you’ll only be able to furlough staff who have already been furloughed for at least three weeks prior to the 13th of June.

So basically that means if you calculate it through the last possible date that you can furlough a new entrant to the scheme is the 10th of June.

So if you want to place somebody on the scheme that hasn’t already been on the scheme and isn’t currently on the scheme the latest date to do that is a tenth of June otherwise you can’t furlough anybody else.

The next update is around contribution from employers, so the good news is June and July stays

as is the government is paying 80% of the wages capped at £2500 and it will cover employers NI contributions and pension contributions as is. From August the government is extending that offer of 80% of the wages up to a cap of £2500.

However, the employer you guys, will have to pay for the NI and pension contributions. From September the government will pay 70% of wages up to a cap of £2187. 50 while the employer will need to pay 10 percent of wages plus NI and pension contributions.

And in October the government will pay 60 percent of wages up to a cap of £1875 while the employer will need to pay 20% of the wages plus NI and pension contributions.

Ultimately, the staff member will receive 80 percent of their. salary for the period of time they are furloughed.

The next piece of good news is that flexible furlough is arriving. Okay, and what it means is from the 1st of July 2020 you will be able to bring employees back on a part-time basis.

So ultimately if you have an employee who works five work days a week, you can bring them back for two days a week. If you bring them back for two days a week you have to pay them at 100% of their salary, but if they are then furloughed for three days of the remainder of the week you can claim 80% of their salary in accordance with the contributions that we just just read out.

So that obviously will decrease when you get into September, October. The scheme is ending completely on the 31st of October 2020. So we’ve got a huge extension here to the 31st of October 2020.

I will still encourage everybody to try and be proactive, everybody to try and understand what sort of business they require in the longer term, start making your changes, start making your decisions.

However, the coronavirus job retention scheme is also there to allow you to not make rash decisions with things as a lot of companies going out there making decisions too quickly. they’re going back out into the marketplace, open the doors and realising actually they’re busy than they thought they were going to be.

So whilst it’s key to be proactive, whilst you need to make decisions quickly, there’s a balance. If you need any support at all with anything to do with this whole process then please contact us.

There’s a link below that I’ll add if you click on that link, you can download a free return-to-work toolkit from ourselves, which is really useful, and again we will offer you a free consultation if you need any support.

Thank you very much. Good luck out there and speak soon.

Thank you. Bye.