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What is flexible furlough?

On Friday 29th May 2020 the Chancellor today announced the changes that will be made to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme – most of us know this as the furlough scheme.  His announcement can be found here.

The key points are:

The scheme in June

No change to existing claims for staff on furlough – these will remain at 80% up to £2,500 per employee, per month.  Plus NI and employers pension contributions to be claimed.  DEADLINE: 10 June 2020 will be the last day that employers can place employees on furlough for the first time.  This is to ensure that those individuals have been furloughed for at least 3 weeks by July when the ‘flexible furlough’ is introduced.  Employers will have until the 31 July to make any claims in respect of the period to 30 June 2020.

The scheme in July

No change to existing claims for staff on furlough – these will remain at 80% up to £2,500 per employee, per month.  Plus NI and employers pension contributions to be claimed.  ‘Flexible furlough’ is being introduced, meaning employees will be able to work part-time and be furloughed part-time.  Employers will decide how that will work (in terms of time spent working).  You can bring back to work employees that have previously been furloughed for any amount of time and any shift pattern while being able to claim for their normal hours not worked.  For example, they work 2 days, you will pay them for those days at 100% and claim back for the other 3 days if they work 5 days a week.  Employers will need to report and claim for a minimum period of a week.

The scheme in August

No change to existing claims for staff on furlough – these will remain at 80% up to £2,500 per employee, per month.  Employers will be expected to pay NI and pension contributions from now on until the scheme ends.

 The scheme in September

Employers can claim up to 70% of salary up to a maximum of £2,190 per employee, per month.  Employers are expected to top up to 80% plus NI and pension contributions (or more, depending on what the employer agreed with the employee).

The scheme in October

Employers can claim up to 60% of salary up to a maximum of £1,875 per employee, per month.  Employers are expected to top up to 80% plus NI and pension contributions (or more, depending on what the employer agreed with the employee).  The furlough scheme will end at the end on 31 October.

Further guidance

The number of employees an employer can claim for in any claim period cannot exceed the maximum number they have claimed for under any previous claim under the current CJRS.

Further information can be found in:

Covid-19 update from HMRC

Factsheet for CJRS

Scheme guidance will not be updated until 12 June 2020.  

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