With the summer holidays fast approaching, furloughed employees might be thinking about taking part of their annual leave entitlement which has continued to accrue during their time away from work. As we move into the next phase of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme) and more employees are being brought back into the workplace on […]

HMRC reported last week that, since April, it has received over 3,000 reports of ‘furlough fraud’ whereby employers are alleged to have abused the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme). Given the nature of the Scheme and the speed with which it was introduced, it is hardly surprising that it is open to abuse. Some may […]

On Friday evening the government issued further guidance on how the new Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme) flexible furlough arrangements will work from 1 July 2020. The key points to note are: Only employees who had been furloughed for a minimum of 3 weeks prior to 30 June 2020 are eligible to be furloughed. However, […]

Since lockdown was imposed on the UK and employees were encouraged not to attend work if they were able to work from home, many employees have experienced a new, and in some cases alien, way of working. Spare rooms and kitchen tables up and down the country have been converted into makeshift offices for who […]

As part of the pending changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme), in order to be eligible to be furloughed (either full time or flexibly) from 1 July 2020, an employee must have been furloughed and formed part of a claim to HMRC prior to 30 June 2020. In practical terms this means today […]

When it was originally announced, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme) was only supposed to last for 3 months. However, since its inception, it has been extended twice and will now run until the end of October 2020. As the Scheme has gone from being a temporary measure to a long term fixture, employers are […]

On Friday evening, the Chancellor outlined the much awaited changes to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme), which has already seen been used to furlough around 8.4 million employees in the UK with 80% of their wages paid by the government. You can read the press release here. In summary, the Chancellor announced that: the […]

On 28 May the government implemented the NHS Test and Trace system as the next part of the strategy to end the current lockdown. Under the system, anyone who shows symptoms of Covid-19 must self-isolate for at least seven days and anyone who lives in the same household must self-isolate for 14 days. Following a […]

On 20 May 2020, the Chancellor issued a second Treasury Direction to HMRC, modifying the earlier Direction that gave HMRC authority to operate the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Scheme). Unfortunately, the first Direction setting out the framework of the Scheme conflicted with the guidance that had already been issued by HMRC (and which is currently […]

As employees are now being encouraged to return to work, if they cannot work from home, employers need to consider the measures they have in place to protect employees from contracting COVID-19. One such measure that employers could consider is regularly testing employees by taking their temperature to establish whether the employee has or is […]

The Court of Appeal has recently considered the potential liabilities of administrators towards employees furloughed under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). It ruled that, if an administrator has made payments under the CJRS to employees who were already furloughed by the time a company goes into administration, then the administrator should be deemed to […]

The government has finally issued guidance clarifying the positing concerning holiday entitlement and pay during the coronavirus lockdown and furlough arrangements. The much awaited guidance addresses how employers can comply with their obligations in respect of holidays and pay both for employees who remain in work during this period and those who are furloughed as […]