It’s Groundhog Day for Furlough (CJRS)

Author: Kay Augustus (Payroll Manager, LHP)

As you may know the Government has once again taken a U-turn in their decision to extend furlough. Although it’s another change; in my opinion this is for the best. We are all familiar with the current furlough scheme, its more generous to the employer and we all know how it works, so if its not broken then let’s not fix it…for now!

On Saturday 31^st October (the eve of the JSS live date) Prime minister Boris Johnson announced another period of lockdown in England which is to begin on November 5^th and will last for four weeks. As a result of this the Government has once again agreed to dig deep and support employers by contributing towards the payroll bill.

So, what’s changed with the Job Retention Scheme Extended (also known as the Furlough scheme)?

• In October we could only claim 60% of wages paid to the employee, with the employer having to pay the remaining 20%. The November extension is seeing government paying FULL 80% up to the maximum £2,500.
• The employer will only need to pay Employer NI and Employer Pension which equates to approx. 5%.
• New business’ may now be eligible – employees must have been on a Real Time Information (RTI) submission by October 30^th 23:59.
• As with the current CJRS, employers are still able to choose to top up employee wages above the scheme grant at their own expense if they wish.
• Flexible furlough will still be allowed during November. As previously, we will need to calculate this based on the employee’s normal hours vs actual hours worked. The employer will be expected to pay the employee for the hours in which their employees have worked.

The government is yet to advise when we will be able to make the claims for November, but there will be no gap in eligibility for support.