Good morning
The team at Brabners have produced the attached very useful updates on the current position in relation to two current issues:
- Government’s planned job retention scheme / furloughed workers to receive 80% income
- Government’s planned support for self-employed people
If you are considering furloughing your employees, I would recommend awaiting further information from government before you make any decisions. We are expecting the job retention scheme to be applicable to umbrella, but we do not actually know for certain at this stage. Assuming that umbrellas can benefit from it, there will be complexities in calculating the amounts to be paid, see attached.
Of significant importance for FCSA is whether or not the job retention scheme’s 80% income will receive reimbursement for on-costs of employers NICs, apprenticeship levy etc. The short answer is that we do not know at this stage. I have raised this across all relevant government departments, and been making the case very strongly that without the on-costs this scheme will be insufficient for businesses in financial distress. I will let you know as soon as we receive any further clarity on this. (Some government statements have been contradictory as to whether on-costs are included or not, please do not assume either way until we have some absolute clarity.)
In terms of day-1 SSP; the emergency legislation for this is still going through parliament, and once it is passed it will be backdated to 13 March. Some of you have asked whether legally you should be paying SSP from day 1 yet. Given that the government expects all employers to pay SSP from day 1 for all qualifying employees, it is recommended that you do so.
As you can tell, the situation is changing on a daily basis and I will keep you informed of all developments that I am aware of. Likewise, please keep me informed of the impact on your business so that I can accurately represent you in our lobbying of government.