Further to our recent flyer – CORONAVIRUS – FINANCIAL SUPPORT PACKAGES UPDATE NO.9, we would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (also known as the ‘Furlough Scheme’) has been extended to the beginning of December 2020, following an announcement by the Chancellor on 31 October 2020.
This therefore means that the Job Support Scheme (included within our previous flyer) which was scheduled to begin from 1 November 2020, will be postponed until the Furlough Scheme ends.
Please see below for a brief overview of the extended Furlough Scheme:
- Employees can still be fully furloughed or flexibly furloughed.
- Employers will be able to claim the grant for hours their employees are not working, calculated by reference to their usual hours worked in a claim period.
- The government will pay 80% of wages up to a maximum of £2,500, for hours not worked.
- Employers will only be asked to cover National Insurance and Employer Pension Contributions, for hours not worked.
- For hours worked, employees will be paid by their employer subject to their employment contract and employers will be responsible for paying the tax and NICs due on those amounts.
- Based on the recent statement made by the Chancellor, neither the employer nor the employee need to have used the Furlough Scheme before but the employee must have been on a payroll submission to HMRC by 30th October 2020 to be eligible. However, the online guidance at Gov.uk has yet to be updated to reflect this, so we await further clarification on this point.
Additional guidance is expected to be issued shortly. However, some additional points can be found by referring to the NI Business Info website by CLICKING HERE.
In the meantime, if you require any further advice on whether you can make a claim through this scheme or what information you need to provide to your employees, please contact us on 028 417 64540.