Coronavirus Update - Monday 25th May

Hello everyone

Happy Bank Holiday Monday!

I hope you get the chance to enjoy the weather – of course whilst respecting lockdown rules!

Just one (pretty important) thing to update you on – and that’s the Job Retention Scheme.

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

You may have read that the scheme is going to change… although the Chancellor is apparently making the formal announcement later this week.

This is what’s being said so far – although we’ll only get final confirmation of this when Rishi Sunak tells us about it:

The scheme has been extended until October… but full support is only going to be continued until the end of July.  ‘Government Officials’ (and sorry if I sound like a news reporter) have said that there are two months of full support left and then changes will be made.

Those changes fall into two categories.

Firstly, the scheme is going to change so that employees can come back to work part time – so part of their wages will be paid by the government and part will be paid by the employer.  We don’t know the details of how that’s going to work as yet so we’ll keep you posted.  However, the government has said that the plan is that (as a minimum) employees will continue to receive at least 80% of their full time salary.

The second element of what’s changing – again probably from 1^st August – is that employers are going to be asked to contribute to employees’ salaries.  The amount of the contribution is going to be between 20% and 30%, most likely 25%, plus employer’s National Insurance.

The word on the street (I’ve always wanted to write that) is that employers will be asked to contribute whether their teams are working part-time or are still not working at all.

I’m no government insider but I suspect (and this is just my opinion) that the reason for this is twofold.  I would imagine the government is expecting most people who have jobs to go back to will be working by then so it won’t make any difference to those employers and secondly, the scheme is probably costing quite a of money…

So, two more months of the Job Retention Scheme as it is right now and then a winding down of the scheme with employers being asked to make more contributions to salary as they bring teams back potentially part-time.

For us and what we do for you there are some things to think about.  For example, if you do bring your teams back part-time and claim furlough payments for the amount of time they are not working there will be a fairly complicated calculation to complete… but that’s our job and we’ll keep you posted as we learn more.

As I said, I got all this from the media and as soon as we have the detail from the Chancellor I’ll update you properly… especially with info about what you (and we) actually need to do in a practical sense…

Finally, if you are starting your people working again sort of nowish please do keep us updated with the dates your guys start back so we can complete final furlough claims for you.

That’s it for today’s update…

More info as it comes but next planned email will come out to you Wednesday.

All the best – and it does feel like we’ll get to see you soon.

Rowena