Flexible furlough extended for a month

In further support of businesses the Government has announced an extension to the flexible furlough scheme – and to the level of support previously provided in August.

Under the terms of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) extension, employees will continue to receive 80% of their usual pay for hours not worked, up to a maximum cap of £2,500.

Employers will only have to cover employers’ NI and pension contributions for furloughed hours, which, for the average claim, accounts for around 5% of total employment costs.

If employees are working flexibly then they will receive pay as normal for any worked hours.

We are awaiting detailed guidance from the Government however to date we do know:

• “New entrants” can be furloughed providing they were on your payroll at 23:59 on 30 October 2020 – this means an RTI submission notifying payment for that employee to HMRC must have been made on or before 30 October 2020.
• Employees can be on any type of contract and you’ll be able to agree any working arrangements with them.
• You can claim the grant for the hours your employees aren’t working, calculated by reference to their usual hours worked in a claim period.
• You’ll need to claim for a minimum period of seven consecutive calendar days.

It is currently anticipated that this scheme will run until the 2nd December 2020 and the Job Support Scheme, which was scheduled to come in on Sunday 1st November, has been postponed until this extended furlough scheme ends.

Further details on economic support can be found at Furlough Scheme Extended and Further Economic Support announced