Extended Furlough
In Propel’s Friday’s Opinion I published our guidance on the Job Support Scheme (JSS) that was due to start on the 1st November but mentioned that the government website would publish further details before the end of October, assuming this might be refining some of the smaller details. Unfortunately we got our Halloween nightmare – a second lockdown.
For our teams there is a lifeline in the extension of the Furlough scheme, with some slight changes. Our development team are now working round the clock to reverse the work we had put in place to cater for the JSS and revert to Furlough. We will be releasing an update to the software on Tuesday to reflect this.
So what do you need to know?
The scheme will operate for the month of November, after which the JSS will come into play (although don’t discount another change in plans). The Scheme will pay 80% of an employee’s wages up to a cap of £2500. The employer will foot the bill for NI, pension, holiday accruals and, if they would like to and are able to, topping up their staff’s wages. These are the same calculations that were applied in August.
The flexible approach is also continued, meaning that if an employee works then the employer pays for those hours and the scheme will cover the remaining hours up to their usual hours.
Eligibility has been extended to cover all employees that were on an RTI submission on or before the 30th October.
It is, therefore, assumed that for employees who joined your company and were not eligible for the original scheme will now be eligible, which will be a great relief to those concerned.
I am sure there will be further updates over the next week as the details are ironed out and we will keep you posted on these.
