Latest Employment Law Update on Furloughing

Latest update from Claire Davies Director and Employment & HR Solicitor.

New changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

New guidance published yesterday has confirmed that the eligibility date has been extended to 19 March 2020 – the day before the scheme was announced.

Employers can now claim for furloughed employees that were employed and on their PAYE payroll on or before 19 March 2020.

This means that the employee must have been notified to HMRC through a Real Time Information submission notifying payment in respect of that employee on or before 19 March 2020.

New Guidance

A new Legal Direction also came out from HMRC yesterday, which says specifically now (which is different to what it said in any previous government guidance before now) that the employer and employee must have agreed in writing that the employee will cease all work which does include by email.  So if any businesses have sent emails to employees saying that they are being furloughed and saying that if you do not hear from them to say they object to being furloughed that you will treat them as having agreed to being furloughed, that may not be enough.

The guidance previously just said that the employee must agree and the guidance referred to “notification”. To make sure this is complied with, they should get the employee to agree by email to the fact that they agreed to being furloughed from the date they were and that they knew that they had to cease all work during the furlough period and agreed to that.

Direction

If you have any questions relating to the above or need any advice please contact our Employment Team on 01228 516666.  We are here to help if you need us.